Breaking the Ouroboros
by Zoe1078
Summary: Leah disappears from the reservation under mysterious circumstances. She doesn't return to tell her story until Sam and Emily's eldest daughter phases, and her imprint is her parents' worst nightmare. Leah/(background)OC, angsty Sam/Emily, background J/B. Written for the very talented Niamh (aka WhoNatural) for the Tricky Raven Artist/Author Silent Auction.
1. Departure

Summary: Leah disappears from the reservation under mysterious circumstances. She doesn't return to tell her story until Sam and Emily's eldest daughter phases, and her imprint is her parents' worst nightmare. Leah (x background OC), Sam/Emily, background Jacob/Bella. AU from mid-BD.

A/N: This was written for the very talented Niamh (aka WhoNatural) who bid on the story at the Tricky Raven Silent Auction. The wonderful idea was hers, and I hope I didn't screw it up too much in the execution. It was meant to be a one-shot, but got a little out of control. There will be a total of 5 chapters. Many thanks to my overworked beta, Babs81410.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of Stephenie Meyer. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

X-x-x-x-X

For the first week after Leah disappeared, Sue and Seth were positively frantic. Everyone thought she had been doing well. Emily had commented on it quietly to Sam, although Sam realized that Emily would be the last to know what Leah was actually feeling. Sam was cautiously optimistic at best, but paranoid and fearful at worst, imagining she was putting on a front. Ever since Leah left his pack for Jacob's, he could no longer see into her mind. As difficult as it was to relive their mutual agony in the pack mind, her desertion was like losing her all over again, and he worried for her welfare. But even Seth thought she had reached some kind of equilibrium. After all, there was finally a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel that she found herself trapped in. The Cullens had left, and with them, the urge to shift. Leah had every intention to stop phasing and finally leave for college as she had always wanted to do. She seemed expectant, if not exactly happy.

Months before, after Bella returned from her honeymoon looking four months pregnant instead of one, the person they worried about wasn't Leah, it was Jacob. He nearly killed Edward Cullen when he saw how pale she had gotten, the dark circles under her eyes, and how weak she had become. But for once, Edward and Jacob agreed. They both begged her to terminate the pregnancy while it was still possible. Bella adamantly refused. Jacob nearly tore his hair out in frustration, but stood by her. Carlisle carefully devised a surgical plan and reviewed it with Edward, knowing that Bella's life was at risk. The fetus was draining her, quite literally. However, the doctor refused to act without Bella's permission. But just a few days later, when the hybrid fetus broke two of Bella's ribs, Edward snapped right along with Bella's fragile bones. He couldn't bear the thought of losing the wife he had just found to a creature he had thought was impossible. While the rest of the family was out hunting, he smothered her with chloroform and laid her down in a makeshift surgical suite in the basement.

When she awoke, her baby and her marriage were both dead.

Bella's moods swung wildly between fury and catatonia. She refused to allow Edward anywhere near her, realizing too late that he cared for her enough to manipulate her into being with him, but not enough to trust or respect her. Jacob carried her back to her father's house and stood guard at her door, barring access, even though a part of him was grateful for what Edward had done. Bella was probably alive because of it, although she barely looked it. Edward, too, began to look like the corpse he actually was. He begged, cajoled, screamed, and would have wept if he was able. Bella did not let him in.

When he finally launched himself at her window, Jacob phased and leapt, and Charlie finally found out what had actually happened to his daughter. Eventually he holstered his service revolver, returned to the house, and went to talk to Bella. Finally, he came outside with Elizabeth Masen's ring clutched in his fist. Jacob and Edward pried themselves apart when Charlie hurled it at them, and Edward disappeared into the night with an agonized wail. Jacob's wolf shrank down into a naked boy kneeling in the grass. Charlie stared daggers into him for not telling him the danger Bella had been in, but directly afterward, asked him to return inside to watch over her. He remembered Bella's last bout with depression more vividly than if it had happened to him, and that the only person who brought the light back into her eyes was the apparent werewolf now bleeding all over his yard.

Jacob didn't leave her home for eight days. He tried his best to put her back together again, but what was stolen from her, no one could replace. He almost regretted having refused Edward's suggestion that he impregnate Bella himself. Almost.

Meanwhile, Leah stood on the sidelines and watched the drama unfold while she took over pack duties as his beta. He had freed her when he ran to Bella's side and broken away from Sam's pack, and she had eagerly followed. She held no affection for the selfish girl who kept using her Alpha, far from it. But if defending Bella got her out of Sam's brain and vice versa, she would do it. It didn't mean she liked the girl, far from it.

If it weren't so painful to watch Bella lose a baby she never knew she wanted, even if the baby wasn't a baby but monster, Leah might have been entertained. She wasn't amused, but she certainly was distracted. Bella, after all, had made a series of terrible decisions to get herself into the mess in the first place. As someone whose life had been overturned by other people's careless choices, Leah didn't have much sympathy. Still, no one deserved what had happened to her.

So she didn't hesitate to back up Jacob when he tossed the Cullens out of Forks for good. Of course, she wouldn't have given it a second thought if he had asked her to rip off Edward's head. But he didn't ask, nor did he seem to hear her when she offered. Bella had spoken only three words before Jacob left to confront the coven, "Don't kill him," so Jacob reluctantly obeyed. After that, Jacob all but vanished. They knew where he was, of course. He stopped home occasionally to make sure Billy's pantry was stocked or to get fresh clothing, but otherwise basically moved into the Swan household. Leah and Seth were largely left to their own devices, and Leah felt almost free.

The evening the Cullens left, the packs celebrated wildly. Jacob didn't come, having returned directly to Bella's bedside, so Leah partied for him. Nothing could destroy her good mood that night. Not Collin's inebriated pass at her, not Paul calling her a bitter bitch whom Sam was better off without, not even the sight of Sam kissing Emily right in front of her. She stopped Collin cold by grabbing him by the collar and pulling him in for a kiss before she released him with a swipe at her own lips and a dry, "You need some practice, kid." She didn't even get a chance to return Paul's insult. Rachel called him an asshole and made him apologize to Leah. After that, Rachel linked arms with her old friend and refused to talk to or even look at him for the rest of the evening. He had imprinted on her very recently, and thus far she had agreed to a handful of dates, but nothing more.

Leah barely even noticed Sam and Emily when they kissed. She was too busy getting goosed by Quil, who was hoping she would retaliate in the same manner she had with Collin. When she turned with her fist raised and her eyes blazing, he yanked Claire in front of him like a shield. She hastily tucked her hands behind her and, with a wide and slightly crazed grin, accused Quil of being a coward.

"Wassa cow-ad?" Claire asked.

Before Leah could answer, Quil said, "It means I'm good looking."

"Oh," Claire nodded seriously at Quil. "Den Auntie Lee cow-ad too. Mo' dan you."

Laughter erupted around them.

By then, Rachel had had several too many. She still wasn't speaking to Paul, but her tongue was otherwise loosened, and she slurred, "You're right, baby girl. Leah's a hot bitch. Way outta the league of every guy here. Legs up to here," she gestured with her hands, "Gravity-defying boobs out to here. Itsy bitsy little waist." She grabbed Leah's bottom just as Quil had done as Leah squealed and jumped a foot in the air. "Booty to bounce a quarter off of. Body of a frickin' supermodel, and a face to match."

As Kim tried to pull her away and Quil tried to take Claire home, embarrassed to have exposed her to such debauchery and finally realizing that it was three hours past her bedtime, Rachel whisper-yelled, "I have a girl crush on you, Lee. Not like that no-good, skanky ho of a cousin who stole your man. She wasn't half as pretty as you were even before..."

Leah herself had to jump in and clamp her hand over Rachel's mouth. She might have thought the exact same thing from time to time, but even she wasn't rude enough to mock Emily's scars to her face. Together, she and Kim dragged Rachel away. Claire loudly interrupted Quil, who was struggling to put her jacket on. "Whoza skanky ho? Auntie Em? Wazza skanky?"

Quil fumbled through a non-answer as Sam glared at Rachel's retreating back and Emily blinked rapidly, her mouth open in mortification. The trio of girls was still within earshot when Rachel leaned into Kim and hiccuped, "Do you know that Lee was my first kiss? It was just before she started dating the asshat. We practiced with each other. Not one person I've kissed since then has such soft lips." Rachel turned back to Leah, who caught her when she stumbled. "I wanna rip off your lips and stick 'em on Paul. Can I, hon? I'll bet they're still real soft."

"They are," Collin mumbled to himself.

Leah coughed in surprise, sensed the number of eyes locked on her retreating back, and answered, "I need them, Rach."

Rachel pouted. "Then you have to kiss me goodnight, okay?"

Without thinking, Leah stammered, "Yuh... nuh... Yeah?"

While Rachel hummed an incoherent but satisfied noise in reply, Kim glanced back and snickered when she saw the slackened jaws and glazed-over eyes gawking at them.

Leah was more amused than she could remember being in months. Moreover, she had missed this; having a friend like Rachel to support her and make her laugh. Other than Seth, everyone else who knew about the absurd turn her life had taken had either done their best to ignore her or sided squarely with Sam and Emily. Seth loved her, she knew, but he was simply too sweet and forgiving to really stand up for her.

The next day, Rachel banged on Leah's front door as soon as she woke up, 12:47. Leah opened the door looking as if she had spent a day at the spa, skin glowing, posture relaxed, and wrapped in a thick white bathrobe, while Rachel looked and felt like death warmed over. "Did we make out last night?" she blurted out.

Leah busted out in startled laughter. "Uh, no, although not for lack of trying on your part."

Rachel slumped in relief. "Oh, thank god. I mean, not that you're not smoking hot and all, but I wouldn't want to have to live it down. My baby brother can see into your brain, you know?"

Leah stepped aside, bemused, and ushered in her old friend. They reconnected over a lunch of sandwiches and fruit for Leah, and a breakfast of Gatorade and Advil for Rachel. Rachel blithely commented that she wasn't speaking to Paul after what he had said to Leah, and she kept up the silent treatment for the next week. During that time she lugged over her old stack of college brochures, which she had kept for Jake, and eventually convinced Leah to take a few courses at Peninsula College. A week after that, she dragged Leah to a bar in Port Angeles, and by the end of the evening had gathered the phone numbers of half a dozen men on behalf of her embarrassed companion.

Rachel continued to be good for Leah. She might have been Paul's imprint, but she was Leah's friend. Leah had lost the rest of them when she phased, and somehow, sharing a mind with a pack of immature teenaged boys only made her lonelier. Even Jared, whom she once considered to be a good friend, was loyal to Sam over her, and moreover, too wrapped up in Kim to pay her any mind. But Rachel knew all the secrets of the pack, and better yet, had been close to Leah long before her life was overturned. Having Rachel back in her life and being able to be open with her was a breath of fresh air.

In the fall, she began to commute to Port Angeles three times a week for classes. Rachel made Paul cover any of Leah's patrols that conflicted with her classes. Paul protested loudly to Jacob, who was far more afraid of his sister than Paul, and too preoccupied with the slowly recovering Bella, to do do anything about it. He even kept the packs separate after Rachel stormed into the Swan house, face bright red with anger, only minutes after Leah called her to say that Sam and Jacob were thinking about reuniting all the wolves. Jacob took one look at Rachel's expression and reneged his offer to reunite, although two days later, Quil and Embry left Sam's pack for his.

So when Leah's good mood seemed to last, they all thought she had turned a corner. At least, the few who were paying attention. But no matter how hard they looked, how many times they agonized, again and again, about what they could have done differently, they still didn't think there was any way to see it coming.

X-x-x-x-X

Leah disappeared on a Wednesday in December. She left to take her last final exam of the semester, and she simply never came home. The first night, Sue assumed she had simply forgotten to tell her mother about a patrol. They had significantly reduced their shifts after the Cullens had left, but two wolves still ran exploratory paths twice a day. Carlisle and Alice had seemed convinced that they could convince the Volturi that Bella had died during her unwilling Cesarean section, but neither Jacob nor Sam was willing to take their word for it. So Sue left for work early the next morning, assuming Leah was asleep in her bed. It wasn't until Seth asked after his sister that evening that they realized she was gone.

After Seth phased in and found no evidence of what had happened to her, her voice absent from the pack mind, he called Jacob. The Alpha had no idea where she might be, and felt an immediate surge of guilt for leaving his Beta to her own devices for so long. When even Rachel had no idea where she was, Jacob and Seth immediately raced to Port Angeles to search for any signs of Leah. They said nothing to Sue, but they were both terrified they would find the trail of a vampire. After all, there were only a handful of beings who had the capability of hurting Leah Clearwater: her loved ones, and bloodsuckers.

They tracked her scent through the campus of Peninsula College. It had rained heavily the night before and all day long, so her trail was significantly degraded. They found her car parked on a side street downtown, and traces of her in a bookstore, corner market, and coffee shop. Then her trail disappeared. They combed the town, finding neither any sign of their sister nor any leeches. Hours later, they dragged themselves home.

Sue called off work and sat by her phone for days. Seth, Jacob, Embry, and Quil phased and ran loops around the whole state, searching for a trail, until they were weak with exhaustion. They thought they scented her near Port Angeles, Port Townsend, the Olympic National Forest, and the Cascades, but storms destroyed anything resembling a trail. Emily's parents and sister were in town for the holiday, so she did not want Sam to search with them. He reluctantly agreed, as if he had a choice in the matter. But every night Emily woke to find his spot in their bed empty. He was either standing silently in the window searching the treeline for a wolf that would not appear, or phased just inside the forest's edge. Rachel, on the other hand, sent Paul to hunt for Leah, but he came home empty-handed like the rest of his brothers. When Jacob told Bella what had happened, she roused herself from her bed, cleaned herself up, and cooked a huge Christmas Eve dinner and brought it to Sue, who appreciated the gesture but ate almost nothing.

For a week, they knew nothing at all. But the day after Christmas, the phone rang at the Clearwater house. Sue snatched it up without looking at the caller ID. She nearly hung up without speaking when she realized that the person on the other end was not her daughter, but her coworker hastily interrupted before she set the phone back in its cradle. The charge nurse was not calling to ask when Sue planned to return to work. Instead, she stated that Leah had just called the nursing station and left a three word message for her mother: "Alive and unharmed."

Nothing more.

Emily asked after her every time she saw either of the Clearwaters. And for the first two months, the answer was always the same, "Nothing," and a haunted look in their eyes. Sue, in turn, begged her Alpha, Jacob, for any scrap of information. After all, if Leah had phased in at any point, he must have been able to find out something about her whereabouts or her state of mind. He refused to look her directly in the eye, staring instead on a scuff on one of her shoes. "She's alive. I wish I knew more…" She took his lack of eye contact as evidence that he was lying and screamed at him until Seth gently tugged his mother into his arms and confirmed they knew nothing else. But Seth was lying too.

Sue begged him to Alpha order Leah back home. Jacob shook his head and said, "She's too far away. She isn't listening, and I can only barely hear her, every once in a while." Seth explained that Jacob wouldn't look her in the face not because he was withholding information, but because he blamed himself for her disappearance. As her Alpha, he knew he should have been paying more attention, should have stopped it somehow.

Rarely, her pack brothers were able to catch a glimpse through her eyes. She was so far away that she didn't even register their presence most of the time, and if she did, she immediately phased out. The images they got from her were hazy and indistinct, the sounds they heard faint and unintelligible. They saw forest, tundra, and mountain, but no distinct landmarks to explain where she was. But the primary sensation they received was overwhelming pain, pain that encompassed not only Leah herself, her body, spirit, and mind, but felt as if it radiated out and assaulted everything around her.

So when Sue pressed them for further information, each one swore he had none, since what little knowledge they had gained could only make things worse for Leah's mother. But she did not believe them. She saw it in the furrows between their brows, in the rapid flicking of their eyes away from her and landing on nothing, and the tense set of their shoulders and awkward shifting of their feet. So she imagined the worst.

So did Sam. He had never found Leah's absence from his pack's mind as disturbing as he did now. Ever since the first moment she phased, his feelings toward her presence in his mind had been mixed. She reminded him of an entire life he had wanted to lead, and a future he had cherished, now destroyed. He had done his best to forget it, to bury it away in the depths of his subconscious, but she brought it all to the surface again. Her pain at the loss, at the betrayal, was overwhelming. Therefore his was as well. But the very same memories that caused both of them such anguish were also kept alive by the reliving. What had happened between them was real, and was better than he had been able to recall without her to remind him. He had loved her with all his heart, and she had loved him back, and they had been so happy. So reexperiencing those memories, agonizing though it was, was not an experience he was willing to give up.

And when she left him for Jacob, she took her memories of their life together with her, and her dreams of their future, and he despaired at the loss. But if that loss was painful, her disappearance was infinitely worse.

He did not beg for information from her pack the way her mother did. But every time he saw any of them, they read the question in his eyes. He voiced the question to Jacob, Alpha to Alpha, but Jacob's only answer was to sigh, shake his head, and look away. When he finally asked Seth, the boy snapped back, "She's hurting, okay? Does that make you happy? She's in pain, and she's out there all alone, and she's..." And that was the last he would say on the topic.

Sam was furious at Jacob for not going after her, but he knew he had no right. If he wanted to find her, he should do it himself. But he couldn't leave Emily. He brought up the topic only once. She didn't forbid him, not exactly, but the tears in her eyes at the suggestion were the only answer he needed. So he stayed.

Six months later, her pack started to lose the haunted look in their eyes. They still refused to say anything, but Sue began to look well rested, and when she would answer the door had a polite smile on her face, even if Sam or Emily was on the other side of it. Sam knew that Seth wouldn't tell him anything, nor would Jacob. He finally went to Quil, who shrugged and said, "She's better, I think." But no matter how hard anyone pressed, no one could get more information out of any of them. Not Sam, certainly not Emily, not even Billy or Old Quil. They suspected Rachel also knew more than she let on, but she didn't say anything either. Not to Paul, whom she was somewhat reluctantly dating, and definitely not to Sam and Emily.

Eventually, Sam got a peek into Jacob's mind one evening when they were both in wolf form. Buried amongst his thoughts of Bella awaiting him at home, there was a stray memory of Sue nodding calmly at Jacob and saying, "She's okay." Sam jumped on the image before it could completely slip away. And he realized that Jacob couldn't tell him more because even he did not know. He hadn't gotten a glimpse of her in the pack mind in months. The only person who apparently had any information about Leah was Sue, and she was apparently extremely careful about what she revealed to the pack. Even Seth knew very little. Leah apparently called her mother weekly, and always while she was at work.

When Sam, perplexed, asked Jacob why Leah was keeping secrets even from her brother, Jacob snapped back, _Maybe because she knows that anything he knows, you'll find out! _And then he abruptly cut off their connection and phased out.

As the next Christmas approached, everyone wondered if Leah would come home to see her family. Instead, at six PM after the last day of school for the semester, Sue and Seth drove to Sea-Tac and got on a plane, saying nothing about their destination. They were gone for a week. When they returned, Seth's sunny smile came back with him. He wouldn't tell Sam anything, but Sam did see in Jacob's brain that Seth would not betray his sister's confidence by reentering the pack mind. He only phased when no one else was present, and as rarely as possible. It wasn't that difficult. Ever since the Cullens had left, the urge to phase had subsided substantially.

By summertime, life had largely settled down. Her pack brothers thought of her rarely, although Sam never stopped wondering about where she was or what had happened to her to trigger her sudden disappearance. Rachel got a suspicious glimmer in her eye when asked, but continued to keep her mouth firmly shut. Sue did inform Emily in no uncertain terms that Leah would not be attending her wedding, let alone standing as her bridesmaid. Emily was upset for days, but there was nothing she could do. So on a cloudy day in July, Sam wed his imprint.

Ironically, the very next day, Sam finally found Leah Clearwater in the very last place on earth he would have thought to look.

X-x-x-x-X


	2. Discovery

X-x-x-x-X

Sam almost swerved off US-101 when he spotted the billboard while driving to the bed and breakfast in Portland. He slammed his truck to a stop on the side of the road and gaped up at the image in shock. There she was, forty feet above him, gazing at him with soft eyes. She looked profoundly vulnerable looking over her shoulder at the camera. Her knees were tucked into her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, and she was nude but for a slender, dangling earring hanging from her ear, and delicate gold chains draped over her luminous skin, binding her in place.

She was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

His shock was interrupted by Emily's sniff. "I can't believe it! We've been tearing ourselves apart worrying about her, and she's just been gallivanting around the country with a glamorous job?"

Sam's retort died before it left his throat. He shut his mouth when he realized he was starting at Leah's full lips, and guiltily snapped his eyes back to his newlywed wife. He couldn't think of what to say to her. She wanted him to get angry with Leah, but he simply couldn't. So he said nothing instead. He carefully pulled back onto the road.

Over the next few days, he realized she was everywhere: the complimentary newspaper left in front of their door, the magazine he flipped through while waiting for Emily at the corner store, the side of the bus shelter. The jewelry store that she was advertising had commissioned a series of nude print ads, every one more sensual than the last. He found her rolling a stocking off one long leg, her only remaining adornment the bangles lined up her arm; facing the camera in an empty room, eyes cast downward as she shielded her breasts with her hands, a series of rings decorating her long, tapering fingers; emerging from the ocean, shining black hair slicked back, a droplet of water clinging to her bottom lip, staring at him with passion in her eyes, a huge gem nestled between her breasts, barely covered by the surface of the water.

It wasn't enough to close his eyes to escape her. She was there, too: a gangly girl who could shoot a basket over the head of a boy a head taller than her, who gave him her dessert every day at lunch, who knew exactly when to make him laugh or when to let him scowl, whose height suddenly became filled out with the most intriguing curves one summer, whose lips became swollen and the prettiest shade of pink after he kissed them. And every time he saw her picture, he remembered exactly what she looked like when she turned around, straightened up, lowered her hands, or stepped out of the water.

It was maddening.

As soon as their short honeymoon was over, the first time Emily left the house, he looked her up on their ancient desktop. And he realized to his dismay that for the last few months of wondering where she had gone, he only needed to search the Internet. Her modeling agency posted her portfolio online, and he discovered that she had been doing runway shows for a few months. Her stared at her striking form on full display. She was apparently too voluptuous for high fashion, but her figure was perfect for sportswear, lingerie, and swimwear. So he gazed at the lines of her body hugged by all manner of colors, fabrics, and styles. In some, her face was painted so heavily as to render her almost unrecognizable, her hair pulled up or twisted back so that it looked like a piece of art. She herself looked like a piece of art. But in every shot, he found her eyes, and knew that it was her.

When Emily came home, he turned off the computer before she walked in the door. "New York. So she's living in New York and working as a model, but Aunt Sue won't tell me anything else. I think she knows what happened to her, but she refuses to say. I don't get it. We've been out of our minds with worry, but she can't be bothered to pick up the phone and say she's okay, and now I find out her mom has known all along and didn't tell us?"

To himself, Sam thought that Leah owed neither of them anything, let alone an explanation, but voiced none of this to his distraught imprint.

But the next time he saw Seth, he asked after her. Seth sighed and answered, "I guess you figured out where she is now. She knew she couldn't stay hidden with what she's doing now. Well, the road between here and there was long, and if she ever wants to tell you about it, she can. But that's not up to me."

Sam stopped asking, but he didn't stop wondering. And since he continued to see her face in the most unexpected places, he never forgot. Of course, even if he had never seen another trace of her, he couldn't have forgotten her if he'd tried.

Life, then, went on. Sam took over the administrative offices of the tribe and worked at the hardware store in Forks. He continued to watch Leah from afar online. He wondered what their life would look like now if he had never imprinted, because he was certain now, even more so than before, that they would have made a life together. He wondered if there would be any point in still going to college, at least online, but he didn't know how to find the time or how to pay for it. The scholarship he had once earned was long gone. When Emily was near, all such thoughts flew out of his head, but after she fell asleep, he would climb out of their bed and stare at the night sky and wonder. He imagined himself living in Seattle, or San Francisco, or New York. Once in a while, Emily would wake silently and find him near in body, but far away in spirit. If she asked for him, he would immediately return to bed and envelop her in his arms. But if she feigned sleep, he might stand by the window for an hour.

And every time he went a few days without seeing the face of his lost love, and Emily thought that perhaps he was finally and truly moving on, Leah would appear again. Because she did print ads and magazine shoots and the occasional lingerie commercial. Sam nearly bit the head off a startled teenage boy who was making crude comments about Leah while standing behind them in line at the supermarket, and that was how Emily learned that Leah was featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine rolling through the surf clothed only in tiny bikinis and a male model (and in the final shot, just the other model). She didn't have to read his mind to know that Sam wanted to climb into the magazine and pry the handsome young man off Leah.

Emily never voiced her own jealousy to Sam, who continued to give her all the attention she desired. If only she never caught him with the faraway look in his eyes, or saw his gaze lingering just a little too long on an image of Leah that unexpectedly faced them, she would never have known he still had feelings for her. She lamented to Kim, but Jared hasn't so much as glanced at another woman since he imprinted, and so she had no idea what Emily was talking about. She didn't even try to talk to Rachel, who still didn't bother to hide her contempt for Emily. She then turned to her good friend Bella. But Jacob's girlfriend was not his imprint, and kind though she was, she feared Jacob imprinting on another woman more than she feared anything else. Bella could much more easily imagine herself in Leah's position than Emily's, so she was no help either. So Emily continued to pretend she didn't know that Sam spent hours pouring over images of Leah when she wasn't around.

One rather smitten fashion designer broke the unspoken rule to design his creations around flat chested, willowy girls with the figures of adolescent boys, and began to use her body for inspiration and featured her in his spring show. So Sam frequented an embarrassing number of sites devoted to haute couture. Thank goodness he no longer phased: he never would have lived it down. He also learned, to his dismay, when she had a brief-lived fling with the drummer of a rock band, then an up-and-coming actor, and for a few months, her picture was plastered all over the tabloids. And all during this time, he listened to gossip and innuendo all around the reservation, most of which he was not intended to hear. Despite the fact that he had stopped phasing, his senses were still very acute. More and more comments shifted away from the old pity she used to inspire, or wild theories about her disappearance, and toward the more common theme of, "Thank god Uley didn't chain her here. Good thing she got out while she could!"

X-x-x-x-X

Leah did not appear in person on the reservation for another three years. By then, Emily had given birth to their first child, a girl. Sue was marrying Charlie in an intimate ceremony, and Sam wondered if that would be enough to bring her back. It was.

The wedding brought back all the children from school. Seth came back from college in Tacoma with his girlfriend; Rachel, Bella and Jacob from Seattle; and Leah from New York. She didn't come alone. On her arm was a young man, taller than Seth, possibly as tall as Sam himself, and just as broad. His skin was just a shade more red than Leah's, his black hair thick and cropped, his smile gentle, his eyes permanently locked on Leah. Sam didn't meet him, but watched the family's homecoming reunion from the darkness outside the house. Emily thought he was getting a drink with the guys from work, which he was, but only for the first half hour he was gone. Otherwise he watched.

Rachel's squeal was piercing as she slammed shut her car door and ran into the Clearwater house. Leah enveloped her in an almost deadly hug and introduced her to the tall man, whose name turned out to be Adario. Seth's reunion with Bella and Jacob was almost as enthusiastic. Rachel and Adario chatted away as if they were lifelong friends while Leah retrieved a large box and revealed its contents to Sue, which is how Sam discovered she was studying fashion design. She revealed a sleeveless, satin, cream-colored, floor-length gown that rendered Sue speechless. Sue crushed the garment between herself and her daughter when she clutched Leah in a tight embrace. Leah protested loudly as she laughed, chiding her mother for wrinkling the dress, and Sue let go immediately. She ran upstairs a moment later and then emerged down the stairs wearing the wedding gown at Leah's behest, and Leah immediately began to gather and pin and measure. Rachel proclaimed Sue to be "sexier than your daughter in that thing!"

Sam didn't quite agree. In fact, he barely noticed everyone else in the room. The only thing that tore his gaze away from Leah herself was the man who accompanied her, or more specifically, the way Adario casually reached for her hands or hips, the way he brushed her hair away from her neck and bent to kiss it, or, worst of all, the expression on her face as she looked up at him.

Jealousy and guilt swept over him. Was this what it was like for her to watch him with Emily? Watch him kiss the scars he had left on her cheek, gently run his hands through her hair, listen to him murmur words of love into her ear? No. For her, it was much, much worse. He had no restraint when Emily was near. His imprint wanted love and affection, so he gave it to her, no matter whether Leah was standing there or not. He should have known better. He did know better, but the moment Emily came into view, he forgot everything else. He forgot the girl he fell in love with despite the fact that she was only feet away, the girl he still loved despite his imprint, the girl who still loved him despite what he had done to her. He knew she did, because he could see into her mind.

But the last time he had such intimate knowledge of her was years ago. So what was he doing here, lurking outside her childhood home while his wife and daughter were waiting for him to return?

He stayed until his phone buzzed in his pocket. When he arrived at his small cabin in the woods and crawled into bed with his wife, he kissed her gently before falling asleep and dreaming of Leah.

Much to Emily's disappointment, they weren't invited to the wedding. The only attendants were their children and their respective dates, and Billy who officiated the ceremony. So the only information that came out of the small gathering came from the usually quiet Bella Swan, soon-to-be Bella Black, who had accepted Jacob's proposal during the small reception following the Swan-Clearwater wedding. Emily dragged every detail out of Bella while plying her with scones and tea. Sam pretended to fix a few loose boards on the back deck while he eavesdropped.

He learned that Leah was going back to Adario's home, apparently on a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York, before returning to the city with him. He was a corporate accountant whom she had apparently met some time ago, but had only recently started dating. Leah herself was in her second year studying fashion design, a long lost dream that became a reality again after she made contacts through her modeling jobs. She had apparently been "discovered" by an agent while waitressing in a diner. She had immediately assumed that the agent was a fraud, but Leah's then-roommates dragged her to the agency, and her career was born.

As Bella told the story, Sam himself remembered page after page of discarded sketches of dresses, jackets, and blouses, and Leah's fingers black with charcoal. He recalled with a start how after phasing, she had had to put away almost all her decent clothing for fear of destroying it. She packed them away right after he ordered her to cut off the long, luxurious locks that he had loved to tangle his fingers in. By the time he came out of his reverie, Bella was gone, taking any more news of Leah with her.

X-x-x-x-X

Time passed. Emily had another child, this time a boy. She grew cautious about opening a magazine, and long ago had stopped their subscription to cable, but it didn't help. And even if she wasn't already everywhere, they would have seen her again. Because Leah returned for her own wedding a year and a half after Sue and Charlie wed. It was larger than Sue's, although Sam realized quickly that this was more to accommodate Adario's family than to include the people with whom Leah grew up. He wondered why she returned for the wedding at all rather than holding it on Adario's reservation or staying in the city, until he overheard Seth's girlfriend telling Bella that the reason was to keep costs down. If they had wed on the Mohawk reservation, the entire populace would have turned out. Had they wed in the city, she would have been obliged to throw an enormous party to include all her friends in the fashion industry, and she wasn't willing to pay for a wedding in the city at any rate.

So that answered one question. But the one that he really wanted the answer to, no one happened to be chatting about. A half an hour before the ceremony, Sam loosened his tie and approached Jacob, who looked nearly as uncomfortable as he did wearing a tux so that he could serve as an usher. Jacob greeted him with a nod. "How're the kids?"

"Good, Katy's running around outside, I think. Max fell asleep on the way over. Look," he held his hips tightly and looked at the ground. "I know it's none of my business, but is... is he her imprint? Or is this going to end badly for both of them? I just... She'll beat herself up if she imprints on another guy, you know?"

Jabob's face hardened, but a low voice growling behind him gave him the only answer he would have for years. "None of your goddamn business," Seth hissed.

Sam said nothing more for the rest of the afternoon. He was too busy staring. He didn't notice the dress that he heard all the women whispering about, see the flowers Sue had spent so much time arranging, or hear a single thing Billy said. All he saw was that Leah's eyes never once left Adario's, and that she looked happier than he had ever seen her. Her smile was even wider than the moment she said, "Yes," when Sam had asked her to marry him. And when she said her vows, words she had written herself, words full of hope, love, and joy, he closed his eyes and heard her saying them to him. He almost said them back. Then Emily squeezed his hand, and he snapped back to reality.

He was relieved when Katy ate too many of the chocolates that were scattered over the tables at the reception hall and complained of a tummy ache. He whisked her home unnecessarily just to get away.

For the next several years, Sam continued to watch Leah's career from afar. He learned some things online, such as when the designer who named her his muse took her on as an intern and then a junior designer, or a few years later, when she started her own line. She continued to model, but more and more, her design career took up her time. Other news came from Rachel, or even Paul, since after Leah and Adario finished renovating their row house in Greenwich Village, they opened it to visitors. After Rachel came home from a vacation raving about the city and Leah's hospitality, the rest of her old pack went to see her one by one. Emily listened to Bella, Rachel, and the other girlfriends talk about the city, its nightlife, its culture, and how smoothly Leah navigated it, and she wistfully thought of going to see her cousin. But to no one's surprise, an invitation never came. They did occasionally run into one another when Leah came home for a holiday, but Leah merely glanced at them with a polite hello as if they were barely acquaintances.

At least until Sam's eldest daughter phased, and they called her home.

X-x-x-x-X

A/N: As always, thanks to my wonderful beta, Babs81410.


	3. Fate

X-x-x-x-X

Katy was seventeen, and the eldest child of the pack. A vampire had not crossed through Forks or La Push for five years, and that one was only the fifth they had seen since the Cullens had departed. By that time, no one was phasing regularly. But a vampire had apparently caught Bella's still-irresistible scent when she was shopping for her oldest son's new school wardrobe in Port Angeles. Will was eleven and shooting up like a weed, although he complained loudly that he looked like a midget when he stood next to his father. She had purchased new clothes only months before, but he was already outgrowing them and forced her back to the store. He considered such a task a punishment akin to the seventh level of Hell, so Bella was by herself when she felt a chill go up her spine. She looked around and saw nothing suspicious, but she had learned to be cautious a long time ago. She had immediately brought her purchases to the register and made sure to follow a large group of women out to the parking lot, where she dove into her car and sped home at breakneck speed, calling her husband on the way.

But Jacob was in the middle of teaching his Calculus 2 course on Peninsula's main campus, and so did not answer his phone. Neither did Paul, whose phone was in his lunchbox, while he was walking high atop a girder on the soon-to-be new patient tower on Forks Community Hospital, or Sam, whose phone was in his pocket while he sat in the Tribal Council office, but whose battery had died.

Katy, on the other hand, was walking home from her boyfriend's house when she heard screeching tires and Bella Black screaming.

The smart thing to do would have been to run into her own home and call 911. But Katy had a fearless streak, as well as a soft spot for Aunt Bella. When she had fallen slowly but inexorably in love with her childhood best friend, Matthew Jordan, her parents had frowned and discouraged her from getting involved. She couldn't figure out why. They loved Matty, or seemed to until she declared that he was her boyfriend and no longer just her friend who happened to be a boy. She didn't understand, but late one night, she did hear both her Uncle Jacob and Aunt Bella arguing with her parents that they needed to tell her something, and then that they needed to tell "all of them" something. She wondered what "it" was, who "they" were, and then fell asleep. She kept waiting to be told, then asked to be told, then demanded to be told, but her parents remained frustratingly silent.

Eventually she asked Bella to please tell her. Bella responded by holding her hands tightly and sadly responding that the tale wasn't hers tell, but that she was "working on it", and that, "All you need to ask yourself is whether he's good for you, and whether you're good for him, and if he loves you as much as you love him." Katy spent the next forty five minutes gushing about all the things she loved about Matty. Bella saw on her face more than she heard through her words just how much the sweethearts meant to each other and gave her the sort of hug that she had learned from Uncle Jacob. Bella promised to talk with her parents again, and they parted ways.

That had only been a week prior. Katy was beginning to think that Bella had abandoned her as well, but when she heard her terrified cry, she followed her instinct and took off running toward the sound rather than away from it. Just minutes before, she had started to feel ill, her temperature shooting into fever territory and her body feeling stretched and pulled in every direction. The sensation only got worse as she sprinted, but to her amazement, she found herself moving faster than she ever had. She was a cross country runner to begin with, and she knew she was beating her best time. As she got closer, she began to wonder why she was able to hear Bella's voice at all. The Blacks weren't far off, exactly, but not within shouting distance.

Seconds later, she heard the sound of crashing glass, and every remaining question flew out of her mind. Bella was inside her old SUV, hastily trying to climb from the back seat into the cargo area. A lanky, pale, and disheveled man had smashed through the windshield and was in the process of crawling through it. Katy registered the fact that he seemed unperturbed by the jagged shards of glass ripping through his clothing, before her own clothes shredded apart as she involuntarily phased for the first time. She had no idea what was going on, and her entire body was overcome by pain worse than anything she could have imagined. Somewhere beneath the pain, she was absolutely terrified. But more overwhelming than the pain and fear was the urge to rip the man apart.

So she let out a bloodcurdling howl that shocked her, and she leapt. She only registered the size of her own jaw when she sank her teeth into the man's foot. She only discovered the paws that had replaced her hands and the claws that replaced her nails when she sank them into his thigh and yanked him backward. She only found out her own strength when she tore the limb from his body, which was the same moment she felt the cold, stony texture to his flesh and understood that he was not a man. And when her father's voice began shouting in her brain, and she saw through his eyes, she just barely began to understand who she really was. When the Cold One, as her father named it, smashed into her face with his other foot, she realized that even the tearing pain that preceded her transformation was not the worst pain on earth. But she also found that her rage could be even more awful than when she saw the creature going after Bella. His kick shoved her backward, but with only three limbs left, he was unable to steady himself before she leapt on him again.

Her father's voice was carefully controlled panic. But he reassured her that he was coming, and he had the wherewithal to give her instructions. So before doing anything else, she ripped off the vampire's head. Much to her horror, Bella had already grabbed a lighter from her glovebox and set the leg on fire. Katy wanted to vomit. But her father issued an instruction that was more than an instruction, but nothing short of an order, and she found herself doing exactly as he told her. She felt as if she had no control over her own limbs. He made her rip the body to shreds and burn every piece. By the time he reached her, she had retreated into the woods behind the Black home. Bella was trying to approach her with soft words of thanks and comfort, but although the vampire was dead, her own terror had not abated. Particularly when her father involuntarily flashed her an image of her mother, years younger, her flawless skin being rent open by what she eventually understood to be her father's claws.

Katy tried to run, but her father's voice stopped her cold. Two other voices and two more sets of images materialized in her head and identified themselves as her Uncle Jared and Uncle Brady, but they quieted at an instruction from her father. A minute later, the most gigantic black wolf she had ever seen stepped out from behind the trees.

Katy screamed, but immediately wanted to vomit when she realized that what came out of her mouth was a strangled howl and not a scream at all. Softly, slowly, and with infinite sadness in his voice, Sam Uley explained to his daughter that every legend she had ever heard was true. Soon, two more wolves emerged, one dark brown, the other light gray mixed with lighter brown. Bella brought out a robe and left it several feet behind her. Together, her pack calmed her down enough to phase back, and with shaking arms, she pulled the clothing around her. She turned to go into the Black home, furious at her father.

Sam Alpha ordered her to their own home, and when she refused to speak with him, ordered her to say something. She spat out, "Fuck you for not telling me what a monster I am!"

He hastily explained that he hoped it would never affect her, but she yelled back that that didn't work out so well. And she realized that both Bella and Jacob had been pressing her parents to tell her this, their huge secret, and that they had resisted.

She phased again on the spot, shredded pieces of Bella's old robe falling around her. She would have run again if her father had not ordered her not to move.

This pattern repeated itself again and again. Sam was terrified that she might accidentally hurt her mother, Max, or Audrey, their youngest. So he paid for three months of a vacation rental on the water, took an extended leave from work, and moved in with her himself. It did not go well. Her temper was hot to begin with, only worsened with her phase, and rose to new heights when Sam resorted to Alpha orders again and again. He meant well, they both knew it, but his execution left much to be desired.

Her uncles Paul, Jared, and Brady also tried taking turns to talk to her or to run with her, but they were even more inept than her father, although she did find out why she had so many uncles despite the fact that her father was an only child. And then in Paul's brain she found out that they all suspected that Embry Call, whom she knew vaguely from his visits home from San Francisco, might be her actual uncle. She finally phased out, her mind swirling with unwanted information.

Jared trailed after her at a distance, wanting to give her a little privacy but not trusting her to remain safe. Katy could hear him somewhere behind her, and it just infuriated her more. She stopped pacing in an attempt to get her body under control. She knew that she would not be allowed to go home until she could be trusted not to phase involuntarily, but being removed from her home and smothered by her father and his friends was no way to keep her calm. To her absolute horror, three days prior, she had phased back to human just a little too close to Brady and had given him an eyeful before she dove behind a tree and tugged her dress back on. Neither of them could look each other in the eye afterward, and he had not been back since.

After that, her anxiety only got worse, and her ability to control her transformations deteriorated. Just the day before, Sam had been walking ahead of her in wolf form while she remained in her human shape. She had muttered under her breath about missing Matty, and he had sighed heavily. Despite being an enormous animal, he somehow managed to sound exactly like he did when he was a mere human who was disappointed in her, and she had become enraged at the sound and suddenly found herself in her wolf body again. He didn't have a chance to lock away his thoughts, and suddenly she was flooded with jumbled thoughts about imprinting.

She was confused, but knew he had let something important slip, and forced him to explain. Reluctantly, he told her everything. He inadvertently showed her vivid memories of his childhood, of falling madly in love with a vibrant, beautiful girl who was like no one else he had ever met or would meet again. He didn't mean to, but he showed her the first time he held her hand, the first time he realized he loved her, and the first time he kissed her. Before he could shove it away, he thought about getting down on one knee and giving her his grandmother's ring. Katy was overwhelmed by her father's memory of complete and utter joy when he looked into Leah's tearful eyes and heard her whisper, "Yes," and her mind was flooded with dreams of the family he thought he would have with her. And then he showed her the events that took place when he broke up her only hours after he imprinted on her mother. Katy was crushed. Because she also saw in her father's mind how inconsequential her mother had been to him before he imprinted.

Like every other person on the reservation, Katy knew who Leah was, but only by reputation. She had even heard rumors that Leah had once dated her father, but she had no idea that they had been engaged and deeply in love. She had assumed that it was a short-lived and passing relationship of little value since neither of her parents ever talked about Leah, but now she realized it was the opposite. Their silence had been deliberate, and in retrospect, suspicious.

Leah was everywhere, and indeed it was unusual that her parents both knew her, that her mother was actually related to her, but never said a single thing, not even a casual mention when one of her television ads endorsing skin cream came on. Matty had even given her a bracelet from Leah's jewelry collection, a larger version of the symbol that adorned her product line: a ouroboros, a serpent eating its own tail. At the time, she hadn't thought much of it, other than being fascinated by the symbol, which seemed simultaneously to represent self-destruction, self-reflectivity, and cyclicality. Now that she knew Leah's real story, she wondered what it really meant.

She was appalled. Sam reluctantly explained that this was why they were against her dating Matt. They loved him like a second son, but he had a small potential to phase, as did many of the boys on the reservation, as did she. He wanted to save her from having her heart broken, or breaking his heart. Once they were back in human form, she asked, "Wait, but when was the last time a vampire came through here? Before last week?"

"Five years ago," he reluctantly admitted.

"And you were hoping none of us would ever phase, is that right?"

He nodded.

"So you were going to keep me from dating anyone at all until I, what, turned thirty and got too old to possibly phase? Or until all the adolescent boys grew up too, in case they imprinted on me?"

Her father looked at the ground.

"Why didn't you just tell me? I don't think I'd have agreed, but wasn't it my right to know?"

"Your mother and I..." he whispered, "wanted more for you. Don't you see? We never went to college, sweetheart. I turned down a scholarship when this happened to me. Your mom dropped out of school to be with me."

"And not telling me about this was somehow going to prevent it from happening?"

Sam had no real response for this. "No, I..."

"And you broke up with the girl you loved because you imprinted?"

He sighed and dropped his gaze again.

She choked, "Do you even love mom?"

His head snapped up. "Of course I do!"

Katy, of course, had now seen into his memories. She stood up and hissed, "But you'd met her before you imprinted, right? You'd seen her a dozen times and didn't think anything of her. You were in love with someone else! With the most successful person I've ever heard coming off the Rez, with a gorgeous fucking model, a rich designer with her own businesses on both coasts, who was your childhood sweetheart. You loved her! You loved Leah! You knew mom, and you didn't love her, you hardly even registered that she existed, and then this shit happened, and everything was over? Your dream was dead, your love broken, and you got trapped here forever. Is that what you're telling me is going to happen to me? I'm going to get stuck with some random guy I wouldn't normally give the time of day?"

Sam just looked up at her with pain in his eyes. This time, when Katy ran off, he didn't stop her.

He phased, of course, to make sure she didn't accidentally hurt someone or expose herself. He followed at a distance, and when she realized that she couldn't escape him, she slowed. But she didn't stop. They both knew where she was headed. She knew every possible route to Matty's home from anywhere on the Rez. She didn't know if she was even going to say anything. She just needed to look into his eyes and hope against hope that she imprinted on him.

She didn't.

Sam's heart broke right along with hers. Eventually, she gained enough control to return home. Luckily, the new school year had not started yet, so she wasn't behind. Sam and Emily tried to keep her away from Matt, but it simply wasn't possible. She agreed to stay away from him physically for his own benefit; every time she saw her mother's face, she was reminded why. But they couldn't stop her from phone calls, texts, and video chats. She claimed she was grounded and made up a story to justify it.

She felt like a leper despite that contact. She was only allowed in the homes of other wolves, and only when their children and wives or imprints weren't around. That was about as much fun as as being locked in a dark closet by herself, particularly since the good-natured Seth had moved his law practice to Olympia two years ago. So she either hid in her room or escaped to Aunt Bella and Uncle Jacob's house. She tried to defect to his pack, but he wrapped her in a big hug and kissed her on the top of her head and explained that she needed to work out her differences with her father. But if and when Sam agreed to it, Jacob would have her in a heartbeat. That very same evening, after her parents thought she was asleep, she overheard a phone conversation in which Jacob actually proposed it.

Her father would have none of it.

She thought things couldn't get much worse, particularly after her eighteenth birthday passed with only a family and pack celebration instead of the huge blowout that she and her mother had originally planned. Matty didn't understand why he wasn't allowed to come, and she cried in her room for an hour after she told him. He tried to sneak into her room through the window that night with her present, but her father caught him before he was able to get within fifty feet of the house. Sam did bring the small box inside. She cried for another hour after she opened the box to reveal a heart shaped locket with a tiny picture of them as children inside.

She was looking forward to the start of school for the first time ever. She worked harder than she had ever worked at anything to gain control of herself, to the point that even her overprotective father couldn't justify keeping her home on the first day of classes. She practically sprinted to the old schoolhouse and into Matty's open arms. Her parents could forbid her from seeing him after hours, but there was nothing they could do about the fact that they were both entering their senior year at the same tiny school.

Matty peppered her face with the sweetest kisses she could ever remember receiving before he pulled back and asked her about her fever with concern. She deflected his questions awkwardly, but he didn't let her go, and that was all she really cared about. She was afraid that he would be angry with her after she neglected him for the past month and a half, but he loved her, period, and was just happy to have her back in his arms. She was happier than she could remember being in a long time.

Then she went to homeroom and sat down in her assigned seat behind Jeremy Harrison. He turned around with a scowl on his face to cuss at her for bumping her desk into his chair, and gravity shifted.

X-x-x-x-X

Katy hated Jeremy. Her parents hated Jeremy. Most of the girls on the reservation hated Jeremy, and all of the parents. His own parents had dropped him off with his grandmother when he was a baby before disappearing for good. She had done her best, and frankly, Jeremy was better off in her care than he would have been in the hands of his parents, but she had died unexpectedly of a heart attack only six months later. He was then left in the hands of his nineteen year old uncle, who was able to provide food and shelter for the child, but who was not in any way prepared to be a single parent, and who essentially left Jeremy to his own devices as soon the boy was able to make his own sandwiches.

Jeremy was a bully from the moment he was set down next to another child in daycare, and he had graduated into a budding alcoholic and manipulative womanizer. A girl in the freshman class had borne his baby only four months before, and the revelation that the baby was his had resulted in an older girl from Forks and an even younger girl at the tribal school breaking up with him within one week of each other. He had met his daughter precisely two times, and only because he happened to run into the baby and her mother at the Ataera General Store. The young mother had fled at the very sight of him, abandoning her basket of groceries on the floor both times. Joy Ateara, who had seen the brief exchange, realized that the young girl was terrified of Jeremy. She asked Charlie Swan about the boy and found out that he had been arrested twice for sexual assault charges, but that the girls in question both dropped the charges before he could be prosecuted.

Katy couldn't stand him.

But despite her loathing of Jeremy, as a newly imprinted wolf, Katy found herself inexorably drawn to be whoever and do whatever her imprint wanted. If she had her wits about her, she would have been appalled at herself, as were both her parents. Because Jeremy only wanted one thing from the lovely young woman who had suddenly turned her attentions on him, and no one needed more than one guess to figure out what that was.

That very afternoon, the only thing that kept Katy from stripping her pants off in the janitor's storeroom was Jeremy's exclamation of happy surprise at her sudden removal of her top, which drew the attention of the Math teacher walking by the closed but unlocked door.

Sam was furious, and Emily was dismayed. She begged him to Alpha order their daughter to stay in the house. Of course, the only thing strong enough to sway an Alpha order was the request of an imprint, so Katy immediately attempted to sneak out of the house. Were her father not a shifter with heightened senses, she would have succeeded. He spent the next three nights sleepless in his efforts to keep her inside, and on one occasion, to keep Jeremy from sneaking in. Both he and Emily longed for the days that they heard Matt giving Katy tentative kisses on the back porch and departing with a shy smile and a wave, and moreover, the glow on her face and the light in her eyes when their Katy shut the door behind him and leaned against it with a happy sigh.

On the second night, as Emily lay alone in their bed and Sam paced back and forth in the woods behind the house, they shared similarly distressing thoughts. Emily wiped tears from her eyes as she wondered: If imprints were supposed to be perfect matches, soulmates that completed some missing part within the wolf, what on earth did Jeremy have to offer her little girl? She couldn't think of a single good thing. And if imprinting was never about finding true love and one's other half, then why had she broken her own cousin's heart? Despite her continuing jealousy over Sam's persistent tracking of Leah, she hadn't had second thoughts about choosing to be with Sam for years, but suddenly, the conflict felt new again.

Outside, Sam decided that his own old suspicions looked more likely. Imprinting was about reproduction first and foremost. It wasn't about happiness, of that he was certain. He loved Emily, he truly did, but he loved Leah as well, and he had been happy with her until the moment he looked into Emily's eyes. Perhaps imprinting was also to keep the wolf close to home. Emily wanted nothing more to make a home for him right where he was, but Leah had had dreams, and despite all odds, had chased after them and landed far, far away.

And if Jeremy Harrison had his way with Sam's daughter, he would impregnate Katy as quickly as possible, and instead of going off to college in a year's time like she intended, she would stay in their home with a baby, who would undoubtedly phase into a wolf as well, if he or she was of age when a vampire roamed through. Despite the pride he took in being a protector for his tribe, it was not the life he envisioned for his children or his grandchildren. Particularly not with someone like Jeremy bound to their side.

Sam and Emily had no idea what to do. They kept Katy at home for the rest of the week That only resulted in the worst fights they had ever had. As she sat in her room, alternating between weeping, screaming, and feral growling, Sam was acutely reminded of the pain he had felt in the few weeks before Emily had accepted him into her life. He hated what was happening to his daughter, but giving in simply wasn't something he could accept. He had never questioned the inevitability of imprinting before, but now it was all he thought about.

Word spread quickly through the remnants of the last pack, and thus it was Rachel Lahote who offered a solution. The moment she heard what had happened, she made two phone calls. The first was to one of her oldest friends. The second was to Sam. "Hold on for just a few more days. Leah is coming. She'll know what to do." Sam begged her for more information, but she refused to give it. She said that it was not her story to tell.

X-x-x-x-X

A/N: As always, thanks to my beta, Babs81410. Next chapter will be up tomorrow, and Leah will tell her story.


	4. Homecoming

X-x-x-x-X

Three miserable days later, a knock sounded at the front door. Emily wasn't sure if it would be Matty, begging to see Katy and being dejected as he was turned away again, Jeremy, who was more likely to try the window than the front door, or Bella Black, who was the only person that Katy was willing to see other than Jeremy.

It was none of them, and Sam knew it before the knock even sounded. He would know the sound of her heartbeat anywhere.

The sight of her standing on his porch took his breath away. She was a ghost, a spectre, a memory. This could not possibly be the same girl, because two decades had passed, and she looked exactly the same. So she must be a hallucination. Her hair was short and windblown, her skin entirely unlined. She wore a simple knitted tank top, a pair of denim shorts, and a wary expression. She looked just as she did twenty years ago when she stepped out of the woods from a patrol for a pack meeting in their home. The only differences were the pair of beaded thong sandals on her feet, the pendant of a serpent eating its own tail hanging between her breasts, and the engagement and wedding rings on the fourth finger of her left hand.

Sam gaped at her, a thousand questions swirling in his brain. Her face settled into what she hoped was a calm mask, and she straightened her spine and extended her hand in greeting. He took it to shake but did not let go when he realized that despite her complete lack of aging, her skin was cool against his hand. Instead of a hello, he just blurted out her name as a question.

She cocked a brow, took back her hand, and held it out to Emily, who wanted to pull her into a hug but didn't know how. She moved along. "Hello, Em. Sam. Rachel told me what's going on. Can I meet her?" She didn't wait for a response before she squeezed past them and tilted her head, listening at the various sounds in the house and isolating Katy's uneven breathing and rapid heartbeat.

She glanced back at them, silently asking for permission. When she received nothing more than their surprised faces, she sighed and turned down the hallway and knocked on Katy's door. She offered a tentative smile when it slowly creaked open, and again held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Leah."

Katy, who was more like her father than she wanted to admit, gawked a bit at Leah as she loosely shook her hand. Her expression exactly matched her father's, as did the way she stuttered, "L-L-Leah?"

Leah broke into an amused laugh. "Oh wow. Yeah. What do I call you, Samantha?"

Katy's nose wrinkled in disgust and she dropped Leah's hand, her brain finally engaging with her mouth. "Shit, no. Please don't."

Leah grinned. "Katy, then?"

"Please."

"Nice to meet you. So I think you know a little about why I'm here. I know I'm kind of a total stranger, but maybe, um, talking to another girl wolf might be a decent chance of pace?" Katy nodded cautiously. Anything but talking to her parents again, or trying to look Uncle Brady in the eye, or try to find something to say to Uncle Paul or Uncle Jared.

Leah peeked into the girl's room, which was not particularly large, nor particularly private. She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. "Wanna take a walk?"

Sam, who had been hovering at the end of the hallway, cleared his throat. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Leah folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head at him as Katy protested loudly. She wasn't sure if he was trying to keep his daughter out of trouble, trying to keep them in eavesdropping distance, or both. He kept looking at his daughter instead of her, and she decided it was both. She sighed. No matter. It was time he knew. To Katy, she said, "It's okay with me if it's okay with you."

Katy glared at her father but agreed. "Fine."

Emily briefly interrupted. "Can I bring you both some tea?"

"I'll take a cup," Leah nodded. "But we'd like to talk by ourselves, if that's okay with you."

She followed Katy into her room, where the girl lowered herself to her bed, tucking her feet underneath her. Leah turned the small desk chair around, straddled it, and leaned forward onto the back support. Katy clearly had no idea what to say, so she began, "So what do you know, and what do you want to know?"

Katy didn't even know where to begin. She started with easy questions. She found out that Leah lived part of the year in New York City, and maintained her boutique there, but had moved most of the manufacturing of her clothing to the Mohawk reservation where her husband was from, and spent the rest of her time there. Several years before, she had opened another store in Los Angeles, then Chicago, and she was in the midst of planning one in Miami. Her husband had taken over as CEO of the company when they expanded. She remained creative director and the face of the company, and reluctantly explained that that was her main motivation to continue modeling. Staying in the public eye was good publicity for the rest of her business, and her youthful appearance made it possible to continue getting work.

Katy suggested, "I guess that's an upside to this whole thing, if there is one. You hardly look older than me."

"It makes it easier to do the skin care ads, that's for sure," Leah laughed. "Too bad you can't bottle the secret to good skin. Gotta trade having no wrinkles for exploding into a giant, furry animal from time to time."

"But are you still phasing? Your temperature is kind of low. And is that why you're still phasing?"

"God, no! Not at all. Although I won't be phasing again for a while. But I only left the rotation a little bit ago."

Katy finally had the opening she was looking for. "Tell me?"

"About my current pack?" Leah glanced momentarily at the wall, and Katy knew that if she could see through it, she would see her father on the other side.

Katy apologized. "I'm sorry. It's none of my business."

Leah smiled at her warmly. "Hon, why do you think I flew across the country? It wasn't to tell you about my clothing. It's okay. What did Rachel tell you?"

"Nothing. Nobody's telling me anything. Nothing useful, anyway. Dad just barks orders at me, mom just looks like she's gonna cry and keeps shoving food in my face, which I want to throw back at her but can't since I'm so damn hungry, and they won't let me talk to Jeremy or Matty or anybody."

"Ah. Now, which one's Jeremy and which one's Matty? I'll tell you everything, Katy, but it would help to have a little orientation. Rachel told me a bit, but you know how rumors are."

Being asked about Jeremy opened up a floodgate in Katy. Her words rushed out despite her. "Jeremy's, like, everything. He's just everything, Leah. I need him so bad, and they won't let me near him, and I can't take it. I can't do it. I can't be in here when he's out there and wanting me. I need him, I just need him, and it's just killing me to be away from him." She stood up and started pacing in the small space, trying to walk away the energy that urged her to phase. "I can't believe Dad is keeping me from him. And the worst part is, he knows! He knows exactly what this feels like, and he isn't letting me to go to him!"

Leah held her hands out. "Back up a minute, sweetie. So Jeremy's your imprint. Obviously. Who's Matty?"

This prompted tears which Katy refused to let fall. "He's my boyfriend! Or he was, anyway. He's my best friend. He's always been my best friend, for as long as I can remember. He's the nicest person in the whole world. He gets me like nobody gets me. He always knows the right thing to say. It's like he can read my mind. If I'm upset, he knows when I need a hug, or to kiss me, or if he should make me laugh. He gets me better than I get me. But he's... he's..."

"He's not your imprint," Leah finished quietly. "Until a few days ago, he was everything, but now someone else is. Am I getting that right?"

Now tears did start tracking down her cheeks. "Yeah," she answered softly.

Gently, Leah said, "And tell me what Jeremy is like. Not how you feel about him, what he's like. Did you know him before?"

Katy nodded. "I did. I..." She wanted to say she hated him, but she couldn't. "I've known him for years, too."

"Were you friends? Before?"

"No."

"Did you ever have a crush on him or anything?"

"No."

"What did you know about him?"

Facts Katy could state, even despite the imprint. So she began, "He's in my grade. He likes to play soccer. He's not the greatest student, but he's not stupid either. He hangs out with a couple guys in our class, always has."

Leah stopped her from her rambling. "Okay, so you knew him. Obviously not as well as Matty, but still. But Rachel said that Jeremy doesn't have the greatest reputation?"

Katy balled her hands into fists and stopped pacing. She took a deep breath and out rushed, "He's got a baby. A baby he never sees. He knocked up a younger girl in school and then just..."

"Ditched her?"

"Yeah," Katy nodded.

"Was that his girlfriend?"

"No," Katy scowled.

Leah read between the lines, and remembered the rumors Rachel told her about. "He had been seeing different girls, more than one?"

"At least two others," Katy's face crumpled. Then she whispered, "And the girl with the baby? She's just a kid. When she got pregnant, she must have just been thirteen. The tribal police arrested him for... for... I don't know what happened, exactly."

"But he didn't go to jail, I get it." Leah didn't need any other details. But she did want to know one more thing. Very gently, Leah asked, "Do you love him?"

Katy couldn't speak. So she just shook her head in denial and tried to stem the tide of her tears.

"Mm," Leah sighed and nodded in understanding. "He sounds a bit like my imprint."

Katy coughed. "Your husband?"

"Fuck no!" Leah barked. "I broke my imprint years ago!"

She almost laughed out loud at the thud on the other side of the wall.

Leah moved to sit on the bed and drew Katy down beside her, gently wrapping her arm around her shoulders. Sam heard the squeak of the bedsprings through the wall and visualized what was happening, and he remembered that before she phased, Leah had been a very affectionate person. As a child, Leah was constantly trying to tackle him, or hug her mother, or attack her brother with tickles. As a teenager, she routinely sat behind her girlfriends as they talked so she could brush or braid their hair. If she and Seth were on the couch together, one of them had the other's head in their lap or was leaning on the other's shoulder (when they were not bodily trying to shove each other onto the floor). She and Harry greeted each other with a bear hug every evening when he got home from work. And even before they actually started officially dating, she frequently had her hand on his knee (in an unintentionally maddening fashion), or brushing his arm gently, or squeezing his fingers. After he imprinted on Emily and before Leah phased, when he saw her and she looked as if she had drawn into herself somehow, he knew that if only he would open his arms and embrace her, she would open like a flower. But he never did.

Katy was not quite so exuberantly physical, but was wired in the same way. But they had both feared that she might lose her temper and phase too close to someone, just as he had done, and she had taken to keeping her distance from everyone. He wanted to yank his daughter tightly to him and soothe away all her troubles, but she was so angry with him that she shunned every attempt he made. And after what she saw in his mind, she was terrified to let her mother, sister, or brother near her. The tension made her already tight muscles even more strained. Leah had better success, though, and he heard in Katy's sigh that she had relaxed incrementally in Leah's embrace.

Quietly, Leah began, "I think I should tell you my story. Is that okay?"

Katy took a deep breath and dried her cheeks. She nodded vigorously before staring at the wall through which her father was listening. Her temper flared again, and she yelled, "Dad! Back off! This is none of your business!"

Leah stopped her. "It's okay. Actually, I'm sorry I didn't come back and tell everyone sooner. Not for their sake, but for yours. I thought I had time. I mean, you're the oldest, right? The oldest child of the last pack? I should have come back before you phased. I'm so sorry I didn't, and that I wasn't here to warn you, to explain things before they happened. I should have known better. I hope you forgive me."

Katy's jaw dropped open. She didn't think Leah owed her anything. "That's okay. There's nothing... It's not... I'm not mad at you at all."

Leah smiled warmly at her stuttering. "You say that now. Should I just tell you?"

Katy nodded gratefully.

But instead of starting, Leah stood and opened the door, where Emily stood, mouth agape, holding two steaming mugs of tea. Leah took them with a simple, "Thanks," and pushed the door closed again with her foot. She handed one to Katy, then pushed the desk chair aside in favor of sitting cross-legged on the floor. "So I imprinted on my last day of school at Peninsula. It was December, and I had just finished my last final exam. I went into this bookstore to get a Christmas present for my mom, and when I was bent over getting a book off a low shelf, this guy bumped into me. He said he was sorry, and I turned and looked at him, and he was bent over gathering the stuff we'd dropped on the floor. He was good-looking, I guess. A few years older than me. But I didn't know him, and he didn't know me, and I was just going to buy my book and go home. Then he looked at me."

"That was it. He was everything," Katy breathed.

"Yeah. I was so happy, for just a few minutes. I thought my life was finally turning around. I thought everything was going to be okay. I thought I found 'the One', the person who was going to make all the horror of the last couple years make sense. I was so relieved. I mean, l don't know exactly what you know about me, about the circumstances of my phasing, but it wasn't exactly smooth. Did your dad or mom tell you?"

"They really haven't said anything," Katy admitted, "but you know how the pack mind works. I've seen in their brains. I have some of my dad's memories."

Leah let out a sarcastic snort. "Damn. Don't believe a single thing they say, sweetie. Oh, that can't be a very flattering picture," she laughed.

Katy blinked at her in disbelief, not sure if she was really joking. She heard her father holding his breath on the other side of the wall, and knew that he hated that Leah did not understand just how he had always felt about her, how he still felt about her. Katy herself was conflicted about it, wishing that he held no one in his heart except her mother, but now that she knew how her parents' relationship had come about, could not help but reassure the woman before her. "Um, I don't know what you remember from back then, but trust me. What's in my dad's mind? It's very, very flattering."

Leah quirked her lips, and Katy knew that her message had not gotten through. "You're sweet, but you forget I've known them all long before you were born. I've been in his brain too." Dismissively, she waved her hand. "Anyway, that's not why I'm here. You don't care about that ancient history. Rachel called me for a reason, and it wasn't to dredge up muck. Although later, I will teach you how to keep them out of your brain. I loved my dad, but I would have just about died if he'd have been able to read my mind, or vice versa, probably. But that's for later."

Katy was actually quite curious about Leah's past, but didn't want to pry. "Your imprint?"

"Right. We were like magnets. I'm ashamed to say that we skipped the preliminaries. I'm not sure what I did with the book, what he did with his stuff. I don't even know his last name, not to this day. His name was John, that's all I know. A very fitting name, it turns out. I don't know how old he was, what he did for a living, where he was from. Nothing. Now, I'm no saint, but it wasn't my habit to hop into bed with strangers. Hell, I'd only ever been with one guy. But this was different. It was like I had no control over my body, like something else had just taken over and driven me to him, in whatever way he'd have me." By now, Leah was staring out the dark window, seeing a different time and place.

When she didn't continue, Katy asked, "And?"

Leah shook her head. "And he was all too willing to have me. We barely made it into some random hotel room. I don't even know how we got there. I think we took his car. He had me strip for him as soon as the door was shut. He was standing there, this cocky smirk on his face, looking me up and down. And I was fucking loving it." There was a strangled choke on the other side of the wall, but Leah was lost in her memory and didn't even notice. "He was standing there in this hot three piece suit. Didn't loosen his tie or anything, but he had me doing a striptease out of a bad porno, and there I was, not a stitch on in front of him. I thought it was..." She shook herself and swallowed, blushing at her own openness with this child. "Sorry. I still have a thing for a man in a nice suit. I got rid of the rest of it, but not that," she winked.

Katy laughed despite herself. "So what happened?"

"Well, thank god we didn't get a whole lot farther. I'd have had to blow out my own brains if I'd... Ugh. Sorry. His phone rang. His phone rang, and he froze while he was on top of me, and glanced at the phone. He didn't pick up, because on the screen was a picture of his wife and his baby. He got all pale, which was hard to do seeing as his skin was darker than mine, by the way, and he knew he'd gotten busted. That's when I noticed the tan line on his finger where he'd taken off his wedding ring, and the burp cloth that was sticking out of his computer case."

"What did you do?"

"I asked him if that was his wife, and he was so startled he admitted she was. So I tossed him off me and fucking ran. I grabbed my clothes and ran. All I got on before I sprinted out of the room was a shirt. And I ran. He was yelling after me, begging me to come back."

"Where? How?" Katy can't even fathom trying to pry herself away from her imprint if he was asking for her. "What happened?"

"It was the most painful thing I've ever endured. It's humiliating to admit it, but it felt even worse than when I gave my dad his heart attack. That's how bad it was, and I know that in all actuality, killing my dad is the worst thing I've ever done. I wanted to go back, I wanted to throw myself at him. But all I had to do to keep running away from him was remember the face of his child."

Thoughtlessly, Katy protested, "But what if he wasn't supposed to be with his wife? What if they had a miserable marriage, and you were his perfect match, and he was yours? He could have still been a dad. Or maybe his wife was about to die and you were going to be the mom for that baby."

Instead of getting angry, Leah just smiled sadly and said, "Do you think I didn't think about that? Those thoughts were like an endless loop in my brain. The pull, the tug, the urge to run back to him was unbelievable. And it only got worse the farther away I got. I kept running in the opposite direction, because I knew that the moment I turned back, it was over. I'd have lost, and run back to him, and broken up his marriage. And I wasn't going to do that to another woman, no matter whether she deserved it or not. They could break up on their own, but I wasn't going to have anything to do with it. I wasn't going to split up that baby's parents. And you're forgetting something, Katy. It's us, the shifters, who feel the inevitability of the imprint. They always have a choice, didn't your dad tell you that? They can choose what they want us to be, or reject us outright. Your folks might have waited all of six weeks to move in together and ten weeks to get engaged, but how long did Rachel make Paul wait? What was it, ten years? Whoever John was, he was a guy who was willing to fuck me within a minute of meeting me, willing to cheat on his wife with a woman he didn't know at all. That's not the kind of guy I ever wanted to end up with."

Katy was amazed, and thankful to Rachel for asking Leah to come back. No one else had any useful answers for her since phased. She was surrounded by people who wanted so badly to help her, but had no idea what they're doing. In only a few minutes, Leah had given her hope. "So what did you do?"

"Like I said. I ran. I tried to stay human as much as possible because I didn't want the pack in my brain. I couldn't stand the thought of them trying to drag me home. If I turned around, I'd end up throwing myself at John. And he'd have me, I know he would. My body, at least. So I sprinted through this damn thunderstorm until I was far enough away to phase. Then I went wolf, just a little bit at a time, enough to hunt for food, mostly. I fled. I went around the Sound and up into Canada, north and east and north again. I just kept going. I let my mom know what I could, when I could, since I knew she'd be worrying herself to death, but I refused to turn around. Not even for her and my brother."

"What was it like?"

"Agony. Sheer agony. Plus I was hungry, and cold, if you can believe it, and lost. FYI, Canada is fucking huge and has, like, four landmarks and maybe twenty people. Or that's how it felt, anyway. I know now why the legends say that a wolf dies if its imprint dies. Just the feeling of separation like that made me think I wouldn't survive. It's not true, by the way, that you'll die if your imprint dies. You'll just feel like you're going to, and some imprinted shifters commit suicide when their imprints die. But you don't have to. It doesn't have to be that way." Leah stood and started to pace. "Fuck. We're stuck here, on the edge of the damn world, off on our own with half truths, lies and speculation." She turned to Katy with a sorrowful expression. "I'm so sorry I didn't come back and tell you all of this. There's so much more information, so much more that we know about what happens to us. It didn't have to be like this for you, or for me, or your dad. I'm going to help, okay?"

"How did you find out?" Katy breathed. She wanted to know everything.

"After months and months, I made my way as far east as I could, and then south. I found myself on another reservation, a Mohawk one in upstate New York, although I didn't know it at the time. More importantly, I found other shifters. Or they found me, I guess. Adario did, actually. He's my husband. He knew what I was immediately, a half-starved, rogue, lone wolf who was running from an imprint. He saved me. He took me to the Clan Mother of the Bear Clan."

"Like, a shifter? But a bear, not a wolf?"

"Yes. The Mohawk have three Clans. Bear, Wolf, and Turtle. So three types of shifters. The Bear Clan encompasses all the outsiders, so I met her first. She introduced me to the Clan Mother of the Wolf Clan. The Alpha of their pack is usually the Clan Mother, or her eldest child. In this case, her eldest daughter."

"Eldest daughter?" Katy's eyes were wide.

Leah nodded. "It's a matrilineal culture. I'm not sure why it's so rare for the girls here to shift. I don't know. But we can, and we do, obviously."

"So what happened?"

"I told them my story, and they took me in. I joined their wolf pack. They taught me all kinds of things, including how to break my imprint."

Katy felt her heart pounding in her chest. She wasn't certain if it was from panic, exhilaration, or both. "They broke it? They can do that?"

"Not exactly. Only your own spirits, your own ancestors, can break an imprint. They taught me how to ask our spirits to break it. So I did."

"You did?"

Leah nodded. "I begged them. I can show you how, if you want. We can ask, together."

Now Katy was sure that she felt both terror and exultation. "So what's it for? Why does it happen, if it's breakable?"

"It's complicated, and there are tons of reasons. But it really is all about genetics, about reproduction, at the end of the day. Shifters can't imprint on those with whom they can't reproduce. So even a gay man will only imprint on a woman, for instance. And shifters who already have their own children won't imprint either, since there's no need for them to. Thank god."

Katy shook her head. "So there's only one person in the whole world I can have kids with, and it's Jeremy?"

"No, no," Leah denied. "It's not that at all. Any guy could get you pregnant, and there are even lots of guys who could get you pregnant with a baby who would become another shifter. Maybe even Matty. He's Quileute, right? So there's a decent shot you guys could make a shifter baby. So if that was all, you'd have been equally likely to imprint on him as Jeremy. Or just, you know, get married and have kids the old fashioned way. It's way more complicated than that. Let me give you an example. Depending on the size of the tribe, the size of the pack, the danger around, whatever, maybe the tribe needs more shifters than usual. Then more wolves will imprint on partners who are likely to make shifter babies. Other times, you'd have these gigantic, unwieldy packs who are just at each other's throats all the time. Then, imprinting might actually ensure that only a few shifters take partners who could produce more shifter kids. Or perhaps the tribe overall needs some new blood in general. I mean, we're a small tribe. Sometimes we need to mix up the gene pool a little, otherwise we'd end up a bunch of inbred hicks. Then you might be more likely to imprint on someone outside the tribe entirely. Or on an individual level, there might be a specific need for that person in the context of the tribe, and their imprint pushes them toward that thing. There are tons of reasons."

Katy had to ask, even though she wasn't sure her father on the other side of the wall was meant to hear the answer. "Do you know why my dad imprinted on my mom and not on you? Was it really just because you can't have kids?"

Leah shook her head, staring at the same wall Katy kept peeking at. She took a deep breath and carefully considered her answer. "No, that wasn't it. When I asked the spirits to break my imprint, I asked that question too. I was shocked to get an answer. He imprinted on her because she kept him here. The tribe needed him here, needed him to stay and protect. We were going to go away to school together. We were about to leave. So he couldn't possibly stay with me."

Katy furrowed her brows. "That's it? That's the reason? So what, imprinting is about population management or something?"

"Basically. Shifter eugenics, only it's not even necessarily going to make stronger wolves. But it is to make certain types of wolves, or not. That's why appealing to the spirits can break an imprint. The spirits are our ancestors. Our grandparents, great grandparents, family. They actually care about what we want. Plus they've seen imprinting go wrong. There are a couple of Mohawk stories that talk about battles they lost because a bear or a wolf abandoned the fight because they were frightened that their imprints were at risk."

"So why do the legends say that imprints are perfect matches?"

"Because imprinting conforms the shifter into the needs and desires of the imprint. If you just give in, Jeremy'll be happy because you'll give him whatever he wants. You'll mostly be happy too, because more than anything else, you want to make him happy. All your other priorities just won't matter any more, or at least, a hell of a lot less. My imprint was apparently a fucking horndog, so imprinting made me want to whore myself out to him, damn the consequences. If I'd given in, I'd probably have ended up his piece on the side or something, and then a single mom who was happy to raise my child all by my lonesome." Leah looked disgusted.

Katy wanted to vomit, particularly when she heard the sound of her father leaning against the other side of the wall and sliding down it. But despite everything, she still wanted to jump out the window, run to Jeremy's side, hang on, and never let go. "Oh, god."

"It's okay," Leah reassured her. "We can fix it, if you're willing."

"The Mohawk, do they break every imprint? If that's what it's like?"

Leah shook her head. "Usually, but not always. Not if the shifter and the imprint both want it. I mean, what if you'd have imprinted on Matty? You probably would have been thrilled. Plus, it's different if you're well informed, right? The imprint makes you want what he wants, but knowing what it's all about, knowing you have a choice, makes a big difference."

"It does," Katy admitted, but her mind was spinning.

Leah saw her exhaustion and offered to leave and come back later. Katy stopped her before she could get off the floor. She wanted to hear more, but she couldn't think about the imprint right now. "Tell me the rest of your story. Why didn't you come home after that? And you're still phasing. What else? What else happened?"

"I owed them so much. They gave me my life back, and they taught me everything. They adopted me into their family, and showed me how to stop the pain, and they gave me a second chance. So at first, I threw myself into doing whatever I could for them. I spent a few months taking on as many of their patrols as I could. I got to be very close to my Alpha, who let me stay with her, and eventually she talked me into moving to the city and trying to make a new life. If it weren't for her, I'd never have gone. I was too comfortable there. But she knew I was just hiding from life.

"So I moved into a crappy apartment with three other girls, got a job as a waitress, and I kind of lost myself in the anonymity and excitement of the city. In and of itself, that was a thrill. I thought maybe I'd work long enough to put enough money away to go back to school, but before that happened, I got spotted by a scout who got me into modeling." She smiled as she remembered. "I was so sure it was a scam. Cussed at the guy and blew him off. But he kept coming back with his brochures, business cards and stuff. One of my girlfriends, who was another waitress there and a roommate at the time, tricked me into showing up at his agency. I thought she was getting dental work. She said she'd be sedated and she needed me to come with her to make sure she got home safe. But when we got there, no dentist. It was the agency instead! I was so pissed, but my roommate, she was this pushy girl, and she said she'd lock me out of the apartment if I left. So I stayed. He waived all his fees and stuff, so at that point I said, 'What the hell,' and let them do headshots. Then when he called with my first job, and it paid so much better for a few hours of work than all day working at the diner, well, I kept it up. My roommate demanded half my pay as commission," she chuckled. "Those jobs led to bigger jobs led to contacts in the industry, and well, yeah. That's how my career happened. But I went back to the reservation whenever I could, stayed on the patrol schedule. Kept that up until recently."

"Why'd you stop? Or is the opposite? Why'd you keep phasing so long?"

Leah smiled at this. "I kept phasing so long because the pack is my family, and I want to be with them. Adario and I, we kept it up together."

"He's a shifter too?"

"Yeah. He's a wolf too. I've known him since I showed up the first time around, twenty years ago. We didn't start dating right away. I wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind for a romance. He was, but I was too screwed up to see it. I was too scared. I couldn't even think about dating another shifter, since I knew he might imprint and leave me."

"Even though you knew imprinting could be broken?"

"Even though. I mean, he'd still have to want to break it, you know? I was scared to fall in love again and have him imprint and choose not to. So I moved to the city. And then he did! Just a few weeks after I'd left, he imprinted! I was so relieved I hadn't let myself get burned again, I didn't talk to him for months after it happened. But he moved to the city a few years after I did, and that's when we got close. He had broken the imprint, I just didn't know it. That second time around, it was good timing. I'd gotten my feet underneath me again, got my wild flings out of my system, and he found me when I was ready for something more. I wasn't so scared anymore. We dated, got married, got a place together in the city. But we always wanted to go home from time to time. It was important to both of us. We're available to patrol at least occasionally, not as much as the business has picked up, but we still did it at least once a month. And the more we help, the less other people have to pick up the slack. I mean, I was able to leave and go to the city and find a whole life because they let me go. Least I can do is try to pull my weight, keep up my share of the work, and help other shifters get their shot. That's one of the reasons we moved some of our manufacturing to the reservation. Our way of bringing jobs in, plus it gives us a good excuse to be there more of the time. Not that I don't love the city, but the reservation is home."

"But you're not shifting now," Katy pried again.

Now Leah's smile softened, and she laughed softly. "Yeah. You really want to know about that, huh? Well, Adario and I, we weren't really in any rush. But people know how old I actually am, not just how old I look, and if we waited much longer to age, it was going to look really suspicious. So I stopped phasing a few months ago, and..." she conspicuously leaned back and placed her hand over her still-flat belly. "I only figured out it had happened when I actually tried to phase and couldn't."

She looked so happy that Katy spontaneously sprung off the bed and leaned over, throwing her arms around Leah's neck. "Oh my gosh! Congratulations! That's what that sound is! It's so faint, I thought I was imagining things! Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Don't know, I'm not very far along," Leah laughed as Katy stammered an apology and backed off her. "And don't say sorry for hugging me, it was sweet of you!"

On the other side of the wall, they heard a choking sound, and Katy turned back to Leah. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I keep outing you!"

"That's okay. It's my own fault for being too chicken to come back and talk about all this stuff before. I wasn't purposefully withholding information, you know? I knew that eventually I'd have to come back and tell our council everything, if for no other reason than make sure we finally get informed about all these details we've lost, all this knowledge about ourselves that we just don't have."

"Why didn't you?"

Now Leah's face fell again, and she looked at the floor, looking for all the world like a nervous teenage girl. "This place doesn't exactly hold happy memories for me, so I have to admit, some of it was just cowardice." She glanced at the wall and lowered her voice in an unsuccessful attempt not to allow Sam to hear her. "But if that was all, I'd still have come back a long time ago. I was afraid about what would happen to everyone who had already made lives together. I mean, by the time I was ready to come back, by the time I was ready to face everyone again, your parents were getting married. I was afraid of coming back and fucking everything up."

"You were afraid of breaking up my mom and dad?" Katy whispered, her eyes wide. "You were afraid you'd tell him he could break his imprint and he'd dump my mom." It wasn't a question. It was a statement. Katy had seen into her father's mind, knew how deeply his feelings still ran for his first love, and thought she might be right.

With raw honesty, Leah murmured, "I was afraid that he would, even more than I was afraid that he wouldn't. And believe me, that was a big part of it too. I didn't want to come back and get rejected again. However it happened, they really were in love by then. I didn't think any good could come of it if I came back. Either I'd tell him, and nothing would change anyway, they'd just feel even guiltier than they did already, and what was the point of that? Or it _would_ be different, and I'd break both their hearts. I couldn't be responsible for jeopardizing their life together."

"What are you talking about?" Katy's voice started to rise. "You just told me that the imprint is all brainwashing! I know it's true, too, since it's happened to me. Their whole relationship is built on a lie! Why didn't you stop them?"

Leah knelt up and grasped Katy's hands. Firmly, she said, "Your father and mother love each other dearly. They love each other and they love your family. Don't ever doubt that. It might not have been the only option, like they believed. It wasn't inevitable, it wasn't destiny, and it wasn't the only possible outcome. There is no such thing as fate. But you're forgetting: I already knew that. I knew that before I left. I've known your mother our whole lives, and your mother has always loved your father. I knew it the first time she met him, well before either of us phased. I could see it so easily. I thought it would pass, but it didn't. And later, when she chose to be with him, I knew how much he truly meant to her. She could have chosen for him to be her friend, or her brother, just like Quil and Claire love each other like siblings, right? But he's married and has kids and is happy with his wife, and Claire is happy for him. And she's off to college and dating and happy too. So when I found out that your mother chose your father, I hated it, of course I did. I missed him like crazy, I hated losing him and feeling rejected, feeling like I wasn't enough. But I never doubted that she loved him, because I knew what it was like to love him, how worthy he was of love. And then he fell in love with her too. Don't ever doubt it." Leah tried desperately to ignore the muffled sounds of Sam crying through the wall and focus on his daughter.

Katy hissed, "But I know what it feels like to imprint, and it isn't love! It's something else!"

"No, he didn't love her when he first imprinted. He fell in love after. I watched it happen, remember? I was there." Her voice was very tender, and very low.

"But he loved you! He... even... I mean..."

"He still does?" Leah finished sadly.

Katy nodded silently.

"I know. He never really had the chance to fall out of love with me. It wasn't fair to him. It never was. But it isn't me he loves now. He doesn't even know me anymore. He loves the girl I once was."

"And you? Do you still love him?" Katy whispered.

Leah paused for a long time, relaxing her grip on Katy's hands, and considered her answer. "My first love. They say you never completely get over your first love, and I suppose it's true for me. Because that person is the very definition for you, whether it makes sense or not, whether or not they do it well or badly, whether they turn out to be the best experience of your life, or the worst, or both. But he's been gone a long time. Just like the girl I was is gone, the boy I loved was gone a long time ago as well. He's a memory too, you see? And I've made so many more memories since then.

"Your father was one of the best things ever to happen to me. And then one of the worst. Your mother was too. Then my imprint felt like _the_ best thing, and then the very worst. And then I figured out that I had to stop letting things happen to me, and make them happen myself. And then things got better."

Katy nodded. "And then you found your husband, the one you were supposed to be with all along, your true other half?"

Leah chuckled again. "Not exactly. Or at least, I don't think that's how it works. I love Adario with everything I have and everything I am, but I don't believe in other halves. There isn't one guy out there that's your other half, Katy. Because you're whole all on your own. You are going to have thousands of choices in front of you, and I'm not talking about men. Any number of choices can lead you to a good life. It's up to you to try to make good choices, but no one of those choices is going to make or break your lifetime of happiness. Truth is, there are probably a hundred or a thousand different men out there that you could make a good life with. If you've already found one of those people, and you make them a better person, and they make you a better person, then you can choose that person. But if something happens, and it doesn't work out, it simply isn't the end of the world. Because relationships are what you make of them, they're about what you do for them, what you put into them, and what you get out of them. Choose to be happy, and choose to make the people around you happy."

Katy stared at the luminous woman in front of her. She loved her mother, but she couldn't help but fall a little bit in love with Leah. Very quietly, she admitted, "I shouldn't say this, and I'm glad she can't hear me. But you'd have been better for him." Sam was weeping on the other side of the wall.

"No, no, sweetheart." Leah shook her head. "I learned a long time ago it isn't about who's better. It isn't about who is the right person and who is the wrong person. It's about what you do with what you've been given, and making things work with the person you choose. Not everyone will be worth the effort, of course. Most people aren't, frankly. But sometimes, when you give it your all, and so does he, what both of you get out of it is exponentially better than what you put in."

"That would never happen with Jeremy," Katy sighed. "But it's what happens when I'm with Matty."

"Then I think we should ask for some help. What do you think?"

Katy nodded silently.

"When do you want to do this? We'll have to be gone a couple days. I'm here through the end of the week."

Katy answered immediately. "Now." Then she realized that Leah had just flown across the country and come directly to her house without stopping. "Oh, I mean, whenever you think is best."

Leah smiled. "Now, then." She stood and followed Katy out of her room and past Sam, who stared at them with red-rimmed eyes from the living room, and Emily, sitting in the kitchen with her two younger children. Emily tried to give them a cooler of food to take with them, but Leah politely declined, and they headed to her car. She grabbed a large rucksack out of her trunk and set off into the woods.

X-x-x-x-X

A/N: Thanks again to my beta, Babs81410. One more chapter to go. It will be posted Monday.


	5. Peace

X-x-x-x-X

They were gone for three days, and late in the afternoon on the third day, Leah walked up the drive alone. Sam was gone at the council building, Max was at football practice, and Audrey was at a friend's house. So Emily was alone when she opened the front door. She had spent the past few days alternating between worry and relief, with a dash of jealousy tossed in. She tried to push it down, but the one thing she thought she would never have to compete for, the mothering of her own children, had suddenly become a point of contention.

She had spent their entire childhood wistfully wishing for Leah's vibrancy, fearlessness, and beauty. But she couldn't help but love her cousin. Leah was a wonderful friend. She pulled Emily into groups when she was shy, buoyed her up when her spirits were low, talked her out of bad relationships when her low self-esteem made her underestimate her own worth, and generally made the world a brighter place. Leah's magnetic qualities pulled her in just as inexorably as they pulled Sam Uley in.

Leah was right: Emily had harbored a hopeless and unrequited crush on the boy from the very first time she met him. He was everything she had ever wanted in a boyfriend: kind, devoted, respectful, affectionate, and handsome. It was an innocent thing until he imprinted; not once had she thought to try to steal him away, and even if she had, she knew it would have been a futile effort. She would have had to have been blind not to see how madly in love Sam was with Leah.

Which was why she was nothing short of bewildered when he said he had dumped Leah to be with her. She had told him to go away, of course, but he refused. And when he pressed her, and pressed her, and pressed her, her heart gave way long before her mind. His accidental mauling of her was the last straw. She had been in love with him for years, he claimed to love her back, and her will to fight for her best friend crumbled under the force of her pain.

And Sam was the perfect partner, or so she thought. He was, indeed, just as kind as she believed him to be, more devoted than she could have imagined, as respectful as a boy scout, his affection made her feel like a princess, and phasing had sharpened his features from handsome to positively irresistible. Their life together was everything she wanted: engagement, marriage, children. If only the spectre of his lost love didn't hang over everything. At first, every time she stepped out of her house, she could feel the stares of the residents of La Push and knew they were whispering about what a homewrecker she was, and how she deserved her scars. Even when she locked herself in the sanctuary of their home, she was reminded. Leah had pointed out the cabin to her on a previous visit. It had stood abandoned for years, and Sam had meant to buy it once they came home from college. He had even decided which of their children would have each room. He intended it for Leah, not for Emily, and no matter how much she decorated or rearranged, she could never quite forget that fact. And just when she thought that enough time had passed that they were all moving on, that the whispering had died down, and that Sam had fully turned his back on Leah, she phased, and Emily's perfect happiness was marred just like her skin.

She would never admit it, but she was relieved when Leah left Sam's pack for Jacob's, and she felt free when Leah disappeared.

But Sam didn't forget. It was hard to tell, since the imprint made him perfectly attuned to her wishes. But she felt him climb from their bed, night after night, when she was mostly asleep, and she knew that it wasn't his wife that he thought of as he gazed at the moon or the clouds blocking the stars. And even Sam did not know that in his dreams, he still called out to his lost love. It broke Emily's heart, but what could she do?

It only got worse once Leah's image began cropping up in the most unexpected places. When Sam spotted Leah's billboard on their honeymoon, it was like a blow to the gut. Upon returning home, she suspended their cable television, citing the astronomical bill, but it was a pointless endeavour. She was in too many places to be avoided, even though she appeared in person less than once a year, and avoided them like the plague. And Emily knew that when she wasn't around, Sam went looking. She knew it was petty, but she couldn't help but be frustrated that year after year, Leah continued to look as flawless and youthful as she had the last time they saw her. She hoped Sam's pining would end with the birth of their children, but when it did not, she had to accept that he would not stop unless she asked him to, and she didn't have the stomach to ask. Because although she knew he would obey her to the best of his abilities, she wanted him to fall out of love with Leah on his own.

Twenty years later, she was still waiting.

Leah greeted her, "Hi. I wanted to let you know we're back."

Emily peered behind her. "Where's Katy? Is she okay?"

"She's great. It's done. She couldn't wait to see a certain someone."

"Ah," Emily relaxed. "Matty's house."

"That's right. She's got some groveling to do. I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn't panic. I'm going to get going." She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. "Stop in and see my mom before I have to go, drop in on Rach."

"No, don't!" Emily stopped her. "Please, come in for a bit? Your mom won't be off her shift for a couple more hours. Then I've got a red eye into LaGuardia."

Leah checked the clock and nodded. "This is gonna sound weird, but I can I use your shower, then? I'm foul. In absolutely no condition in which to foist myself on anyone, yourself included."

Emily disagreed silently and in frustration; Leah was nothing short of glowing. But she decided that that was too odd to say, and would not be appreciated even if she could keep the bitterness out of her voice, which she didn't think she could. They hadn't been close enough to make casual comments like that in a long time, so she simply retrieved towels for Leah and waited at the kitchen table. While they were gone, she had asked Sam what Katy and Leah talked about. He didn't really want to tell her, figuring that Leah would tell Emily what she wanted her to know, but couldn't resist her request. So he told her what he had heard through the wall.

Between exhaustion, anxiety, fear, gratitude, and now relief, by the time Leah emerged from the steamy bathroom drying her hair with a soft towel, Emily had started to cry in her kitchen chair. She had spent the past twenty years fooling herself into thinking that she had no choice but to be with Sam. That Leah was an unavoidable casualty. So she ultimately held herself blameless despite holding a token amount of guilt close to her chest, since she had once loved Leah like a sister. When Claire had decided not to be Quil's romantic partner when she came of age, Emily had had an internal crisis. But she, as well as everyone else, Quil in particular, was much more comfortable with the idea of the couple as siblings than lovers, and it was not that difficult to convince herself that she and Sam were simply meant to be together in a way that Quil and Claire were not, and certainly in a way that Sam and Leah were not.

With Leah's return, the illusion had dissolved like mist.

Leah misunderstood her tears and said softly, "It's been hard, I know. Thankfully, Matt never quite figured out what went on between her and Jeremy. Katy's a wonderful girl, Em, and she's gonna be fine."

Emily sniffed, "I know. Sam told me what you were doing, what you've done for her. I know she's going to be okay."

"But it's not what you wanted for your child. I'm sure you didn't want her to phase at all, and once that happened, you hoped for a different sort of imprint for her."

"I did," Emily admitted. "I wanted her to imprint on Matty, but when she didn't, I consoled myself with the thought that there was this perfect match out there that was going to pull everything together into a fairytale ending. But it broke my heart that she may or may not ever meet him."

"And between now and then, was she just going to have to wait and wonder? You had to feel so bad for your little girl. If it's any consolation, that creep she imprinted on has gone back to just being a creep again. We actually went to see him earlier today. She told him in no uncertain terms not to speak to her, not to call her, not to look at her the wrong way." Leah smirked. "She's a fierce one."

Emily smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "She is. She's got a lot more of Sam in her than she does me."

Leah actually looked amused. "I'm not sure fierce is exactly the word I'd use to describe Sam."

"I guess I don't know where her stubbornness comes from," Emily admitted. Certainly not from Sam, which she supposed she should be grateful for. Because if he had had that streak in him, he might well have fought for Leah, and Katy, Max, and Audrey might not exist at all. Emily crumpled again.

Leah still didn't understand what upset her, and reassured her. "You know, she doesn't need a fairytale to just sweep her up. She's a good girl, strong, smart, and beautiful, and she'll make her own happy ending."

Emily couldn't hold it in anymore. "That's not why I'm upset! I didn't need her to have an imprint settle her life out for her. I'm glad she gets to choose. I'm glad you gave her that choice. It's you! All this time, I thought Sam and I were... I thought we were..." She couldn't complete the thought out loud, but Leah knew what she meant anyway. It was why she hadn't come back as soon as she broke her imprint. Leah didn't want to be responsible for breaking either of their hearts, and knew one or both might shatter at her news. Emily choked out, "But it all worked out the way it was supposed to in the end. Look at you, look at your life and where you are and what you've done. This is what you were meant for! And that baby, that's the one you were meant to have!"

Leah shook her head slowly and explained to Emily what she had explained to her daughter. "Things don't work out because it's the way fate or destiny predetermined, Em. If I believed that, my life would look completely different. I'd have a different child than this one. And although I'd love that baby every bit as much as I'll love this one, its father would have just used me for what he wanted, and I'd have forgotten my own will," she said, her hand low on her pelvis. "There are a hundred different lives I could have led. This is the one I've chosen. Things turn out the way they do because of chance, and because of the choices we make, and the choices of those around us."

"I didn't think we had any other choices," Emily whispered.

Leah knew this wasn't true. All along, Emily could have chosen Sam as her friend or her brother, but she did not. But now, twenty years later, throwing that back in Emily's face would only have been spiteful. Instead, she said, "You have a beautiful family because it's what you chose to do, and it's what you put all your time and energy and focus into. Give yourself the credit for that, and give credit to Sam for being the man he is and making this family with you, and credit to your kids for being the people they are. It isn't fate, Em, it's what you all have built. With some luck thrown in."

She rose to go. She said her piece, she had done her best, and she had helped Emily's daughter. She didn't have anything left to offer her.

Emily stared after her. "Wait," she called out. Leah couldn't leave yet. She needed her friend's forgiveness almost as much as she needed Sam. "We never meant to hurt you," she choked.

Leah sighed, her back still facing her cousin. It wasn't the first time she had heard this from Emily, but the other woman seemed still not to understand what it meant. Without malice, Leah answered, "You chose this life over my heart, but as much as it hurt me, the choice was a valid one. It's up to you to stand behind your decisions, Em."

When Leah paused but didn't turn back, Emily said softly, "Just... Thank you. For everything."

"You're welcome," Leah answered simply.

She stepped out the door, and she found Sam waiting for her, standing by her car. For a second, he looked just like he had so many years ago, when she had been so very much in love with him. Dark eyes, soft expression, nervous set of his beautiful mouth. She blinked, and the illusion cleared. "Oh! I didn't think I'd see you before I left."

He sounded heartbroken at this, and his face fell. "Honestly?"

"Not after everything I said the other day."

"Through the wall?"

She smiled a little and looked at the ground, and his heart lurched toward her. "It was easier telling her, I'll be honest."

"I'm sorry I didn't make it easier for you to talk with me, to stay in touch."

She chuckled. "Hm. I think that was my fault, not yours. I'm the one who ran off without a word to anyone."

"But it was my fault that by then, you weren't comfortable enough to talk to me anyway."

Her expression was gentle. "There's no point in placing blame, Sam. Not now. That was a long time ago."

He sensed she was about to end the conversation and go, so he stopped her before she had the chance. "Can I ask you something? About what you told Katy?"

"Yeah." She blinked at him. "But you should also know that I'll make sure to make some time, the next time I'm home, to sit down with the council and tell you guys everything I know. I told Katy a lot, but there's a lot of knowledge we lost over the years, and I understand more of it now. We all need to know it."

Sam was impatient, a trait he thought he had given up a long time ago. Something about Leah brought it out in him. He didn't want to wait for answers, and moreover, he didn't want her to go. Not when she was finally speaking with him again. "Can't you stay a little longer?"

"Sorry," she shook her head. "I'm filming a commercial in two days, and I was supposed to meet a new supplier today. I promise, though, I won't be such a stranger from now on. Oh," she exclaimed before unclasping her necklace. "Can you give this to Katy? I remember how I just didn't feel feminine after I phased. Maybe a little jewelry will help her feel like a girl again."

"It's too much. You've done so much already," he declined, using the excuse to touch her hand as he gently pushed her extended offering back toward her, still startled at the lack of heat on her skin. Without it, and without the guarded mask she wore to protect herself from him, she looked just like his high school sweetheart.

"It isn't, and you know it. Please? If you don't take it now, I'll have to sneak it on her somehow next time I see her, and then she'll have it anyway," she grinned.

He nodded as he accepted it, staring at her smile. He couldn't remember the last time her face was so open in front of him. It made her even more beautiful than she already was. He was glad that this time, he would have a clue as to the next time he would see her again. But he also knew that he was not likely to have any more time alone with her, so he needed to take advantage while he had her. He pocketed the token. "Thank you. I think maybe a lot of things are going to change."

"Hopefully good changes," she agreed. "Was there something in particular you wanted to know? Before I go?" She pointed to her car.

He licked his lips nervously and looked at hers. They looked ripe and lush, just like the rest of her. He finally spoke just to interrupt his own blatant staring. "You spoke about the spirits, our ancestors."

"I did."

"Speaking with them, was it... specific?" he said slowly, not certain how to approach the subject. He still thought about Harry Clearwater from time to time. About how the older man had felt to him like more of a father than his own, about how Harry seemed almost as heartbroken as Sam himself when Sam did not imprint on Leah, how conflicted he obviously felt when he asked Sam to break up with Leah before he imprinted on someone else, how relieved he was when Sam refused, and how simultaneously sympathetic and angry he was when Emily arrived, and everything else fell apart.

And despite his inability to voice his question, and the years that had passed since they were close, she knew him well enough to know what he was asking. Her expression softened again. "It was. My father apologized to me, and to you. We were able to be together for a very long time, and he was the one who broke my imprint."

Sam was relieved until Leah continued, "But he refused to forgive me for killing him, because he insisted that I didn't."

Sam's heart ached for her all over again, at the fact that she still believed she was responsible for Harry's death. "Lee-Lee," he pleaded. "You can't carry that burden forever. It wasn't your fault. I was there that night too, remember? I was there, and I know it wasn't anyone's fault."

She quirked her brow. "As if I could forget." But unlike the same words she might have spoken years ago, her voice held only memory and sadness, not anger, hostility, or betrayal.

It also didn't escape his notice that she didn't bristle at his use of her nickname. "It wasn't your fault," he insisted.

She just shrugged. "We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one." Because whatever other dark places her life had sunk into when she phased, or when Sam phased, she could rise above all of them, save one. Harry was simply irreplaceable. But she had still achieved some measure of peace over his loss, because she was able to speak with him one more time when she asked him to break her imprint. And whether or not she was forgiven, she was loved, and she gave her love back to her father in equal measure, and it was enough.

Either way, she didn't want to dwell on the subject with Sam any longer. "Anyway, I am sorry I didn't say anything sooner. It wouldn't have been so hard on Katy, and that's my fault. I swear I wasn't going to just keep it all a secret forever. I always meant to tell the whole pack everything I've learned before the next pack phased. I just thought I had more time. I should have known better." The regret in her voice hurt him more than he expected it would.

He couldn't help himself. He approached her until she was in reach, and he took her hand. She started down at his grip in surprise, giving him the chance to answer. "Don't you dare apologize. Not for that, and not for anything. I just... I wish you had told me when it happened. Before it was too late." He wasn't sure why he was able to admit or speak the truth, especially with Emily so close. Perhaps she, too, knew it was time.

She looked up from their hands, startled. "Too late for what?"

He couldn't stop his movement. He raised his free hand and gently ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "For us." He wanted to kiss her, but he knew he didn't have the right.

Her expression softened. "It was already too late for us, Sam."

"It wasn't!" he insisted. Now that his daughter's free will had been returned to her, his mind swirled with the implications for himself. Now that Leah had given them that gift.

She pressed her hand over his on her cheek as she shook her head. "You loved her by then," she explained.

"Not like I loved you, Lee-Lee," he whispered. It might have been different had he met Emily first, if she had switched places with Leah from birth. But she hadn't, and he had loved Leah before he even knew of Emily, and he had loved her in a pure and innocent way that he could never feel for another human being. She had taken all of his heart, and when imprinting yanked it away and tried to give it to another, a piece had stayed with her, and she couldn't give it back to him even if she tried.

She tugged his fingers away from her face and squeezed them tightly. "You can't tell me you regret this life."

"That's not what I meant." He swallowed thickly. "Of course I don't regret my family. But it's like you said yourself. I'd have loved our family every bit as much. You remember that that's all I wanted, before. And you know that I never thought I had any other choice. If I did..."

"Did you really want to have to make that choice? When she was in so deep? When you loved her so much?"

"When I loved you more!" he insisted, his jaw tight. "Lee-Lee, if I had known, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I would never have looked back!"

She shook her head and gently reminded him, "You forget. I thought I had no choice either, but I still found another way." She took his other hand and brought it to her lips, kissing it gently. "But maybe that's just because I'm so stubborn," she chuckled. "Besides. I knew what making that choice would do to you, and to her, and I didn't want that for either of you. Because I loved you both too."

She tugged him close and wrapped her arms around him. He froze in surprise, but after a beat crushed her tightly and buried his face in her neck. He breathed her in, his lost love, and memorized the sensation of her body against his.

He held her for as long as she allowed, until her skin was wet with his tears. But when she separated from him and turned back to her car, he stopped her before she could shut the door. His voice was rough and low. "You were wrong, you know, about one thing you told Katy."

She looked at him expectantly, appearing exactly as he remembered her so many years ago, before he phased, before she phased, before their hearts were broken.

He knew that even though he would see her again, that this was not a final goodbye, he would never again get a chance to open his heart to her in this fashion. The next time she came home, she would have her child in her arms and her husband at her side, and his own family would surround them as well. And though she had had the ability to see into his mind after they phased, she was no longer able to see into his heart. And he needed her to know. "She told you that I still love you, and you denied it. You said I'm in love with the girl you once were. It's not true. I love the woman you are, and I always will."

She blessed him with his favorite smile before she drove away.

X-x-x-x-X

A/N: Thanks again to Niamh, who should take all the credit for the heart of this story, and to Babs81410, who should take the credit for it being readable. All mistakes are mine.


End file.
